Winners of the German bridge construction prize 2010 are the bridge over the Elbe river near Mühlberg on the border of the states of Brandenburg and Saxony in the "Road and railway bridges" category and the town harbour bridge at Sassnitz on the island of Rügen in the category "Pedestrian and cyclist bridges". Dipl.- Ing. Wolfgang Eilzer, Prof. Dr. Mike Schlaich and Dipl.-Ing. Andreas Keil received the awards as those engineers bearing main responsibility.

Dipl.-Ing. Wolfgang Eilzer triumphed with a combination of innovative design ideas and sheer elegance at the so-called Mühlberg "eye". The 700 m bridge over the Elbe also fulfils ecological stipulations in an optimum way. The river crossing, situated about half way between the bridges at Riesa und Torgau, is designed as a 12-part deck bridge. In this construction, a choice was made for a classic steel composite cross-section over the river course and a prestressed concrete cross-section for the eastern foreland area. Special mention must be made of an innovative design feature – the cross-section resolved in tension and portal frame shafts in the area of the river pylon for absorbing its great hogging moment.

Concrete joints link the portal frame shafts with the foundation elements. This highly stressed area round the "eye" was carried out as a composite construction. The portal frames and node portions under compressive stress have been filled with high-strength concrete. From an aesthetical viewpoint, the shaping of the resolved concrete haunches is particularly pleasing. Other innovative highlights are the utilisation of self-compacting concrete in the river pylon section plus the application of external pretensioning in the composite superstructure above the "eye". Extensive in-situ experiments were carried out to this end.

The German bridge construction prize is awarded by the BIngK (Federal Cham- ber of Engineers) and the VBI (Associa- tion of Consulting Engineers) every two years with the purpose of raising public awareness more effectively concerning the contribution of engineers to architecture. The prize honours creative engineering design in the supreme discipline of civil engineering. About 1,300 guests celebrated the awarding of the German bridge construction prize 2010 with the prize winners in the audimax at TU Dresden.