AfE Tower implosion joins WDS programme
By Lindsay Gale10 October 2014
The AfE Tower implosion that was carried out by Reisch Sprengtechnik in Frankfurt has been included as the very final presentation in the programme for the 2014 World Demolition Summit. This explosive demolition brought down the 117 m (384 ft) structure, formerly home to Frankfurt University, using 950 kg (2,090 lb) of explosive.
The 117 m high reinforced concrete high rise was brought down on February 2 2014, using two time delay blasts, with the surrounding beam structure collapsed first with a three second delay before the central core was folded into a confined footprint. The impact of its 50,000 tonnes created moderate vibration levels because of energy divergence and the longer time the implosion method took to input the energy into the ground.
The resulting debris pile was only 90 m (295 ft) long, 50 m (164 ft) wide and less than 10 m (33 ft) above ground and the implosion caused no noticeable damage to any of the surrounding structures. This explosive demolition, the highest of its type ever carried out in Germany and almost certainly in Europe, will be the subject of this presentation.
