For all of us, this was the highlight project! - we asked the Engineer of the Month about the latest Danube Bridge

As one of the country's most significant construction projects, the construction of the Tomori Pál Bridge spanning the Danube has been the subject of considerable attention over the past 40 months, which our newspaper has also been following closely. The project involved the construction of Hungary's first extradosed (i.e. tensioned-suspended – ed.) bridge over the Danube – which is also the largest of all extradosed bridges in the country – between Paks and Kalocsa, as part of the Építési és Közlekedési Minisztérium investment and the Duna Aszfalt Zrt. general construction project. which was handed over on 6 June. Project manager István Wunderlich gave our newspaper a detailed interview about this development, which presented a number of unique challenges, but as Engineer of the Month for June, we also asked him about his career.

Even at 12, he knew exactly what he wanted

"I think that the love of building is coded into people from the very beginning, but for me it was more conscious, because my grandfather, my father and my uncle were also involved in the building industry," said the engineer, who was born in Pécs, the capital of the Baranja county. "Our flat was full of technical drawings, inks, graphite pencils of different strengths, we loved to draw with them."

No wonder that by the age of 12 or 13, he already knew the difference between an architect and a civil engineer

"The direction was clear: I wanted to be a civil engineer. I wanted to understand what goes into building a big structure and how the built world works."

Better to understand than to memorise without reason

This direction has been definitively established in his studies, despite the fact that, in addition to his mother, he has several musicians and actors in his family, in which there are six brothers and sisters. "This duality also led me to apply to a music high school and I was accepted. I got my results before I got my grammar school admission, but my parents didn't tell me because they preferred to let the realistic direction prevail."

He graduated from the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in 2005. "I have always sought to understand, to make connections. In theory, we were very well prepared for the profession, but the real learning started outside in practice."

As for the internship, he was very interested in the technology of sliding shuttering for industrial structures, so he joined Altaform Kft. as a university intern. "I found my place there so well that this working relationship became permanent: even after starting the master's programme, the project-like collaboration remained."

Another important milestone was a year at the Technical University of Stuttgart. "It was a formative experience in terms of my approach to work, in terms of dealing with the working environment abroad."

He also learned a lot from giant projects abroad and then from bridge building in Hungary

He has spent three years at Altaform Kft. and says he owes a lot to the company. "Besides Hungary, we worked in Poland, Serbia and Germany, mainly on large industrial structures. Among other things, we built flour silos, cement silos and heat exchanger towers: the sliding-grid construction we represented was a special technology for the more economical and faster construction of buildings hundreds of metres high."

During this period he was able to work with large multinational clients. "I was able to see a kind of systems approach without which these large-scale projects would not have been possible."

His next job was a professional success: he won the Diploma Award of the Hungarian Steel Construction Association for his diploma on the simulation of cold forming of thin-walled bars, and met one of the managers of Közgép Zrt. at the ceremony. This was the motivation for the move to Közgép, where he worked on the on-site construction of bridge structures. He went from one big project to another, one of the most frequented railway mainline river structures in Hungary, the Szolnok-Szajol railway bridge over the Tisza:

"Here, in the space of a week, we pulled out a steel structure of a two-track railway bridge weighing thousands of tonnes perpendicular to the track, replaced it with the newly built railway bridge and opened the new 160km/h railway track to rail traffic. -

He has also worked on projects such as the construction of the B1 high bridge at the Zalalövő bypass, the extension of the Paks Radioactive Waste Storage Facility for Spent Fuel Caskets, and the Tisza bridge on the Abony-Törökszentmiklós section of the M4 motorway.

Out of status or humility? It makes a difference!

He highlighted a key feature of the construction industry in connection with his learning period at Közgép.

"In this industry, you either go in being humble, or if you're not, you're taught to be humble. Because a professional who's been doing his job for 30 or 40 years - whether he's a locksmith or a welder - knows the ins and outs of his trade. But if you approach it with theory and status instead of humility, you can easily hit a wall. But if you approach him with humility, he is willing to show the best of his trade, even to young engineers."

As a civil engineer, the welding engineering approach is a whole new dimension

His professional dedication is also demonstrated by the fact that in 2015 he enrolled in the three-semester welding engineering course offered by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of the BME. "It wasn't easy to get into or stay in this course; nor was my job able to support it, but I made the decision. I wanted to understand the process down to the smallest detail: how metal goes from solid to liquid and back again; why a particular current, chemical composition or gun hold is needed, and so on."  

He added that, although he had not been able to obtain funding or days off to study for a degree in the current situation, his immediate superiors respected his determination and stood by him. "So I ended up working nights and weekends, sacrificing all my holidays, but I completed the course.

In retrospect, if I was asked to make a decision today, I would do it anyway, because it's a huge achievement for me to have done it and it's a very big benefit."

He was part of a memorable creation at Lake Tisza

The next change in his career came in 2017, when he signed up with Hódút Kft., part of Duna Group. "As a project manager, I started working on smaller steel bridge structures, but in the meantime I also played an active role in the welding technology of, for example, the new Danube bridge in Komárom, or the welding technology design of the Mosoni-Danube bridge on the Győr bypass and the railway bridge connecting the capital city with the South." From this period, he highlighted the replacement of the old road bridge at the Ferenc Canal in Baja as project manager.

Equally memorable for him was the construction of the cycle path between Tiszafüred and Poroszló, with the construction of four cycle bridges, which our newspaper has reported on several times. „The development that completes the cycle path around Lake Tisza is our multi-award-winning project, and we are very proud of it. Everything happened here, from deep foundation work, floating service, transport of oversized elements, to the welding technology of curved thick-walled main girders, elevating it to a work of art that could almost be compared to sculpture.”

He also pointed out that the bridge girders were manufactured in Duna Group's plant in Poland, while Weinberg 93 Kft. joined the bridge on the Szomorka Creek and the Flushing Canal X as a manufacturer: "We have developed a very good cooperation with the company in Sárospatak, and they, like us, have learned a lot from this project in the field of bridge construction."

Like a precisely ticking clock

As he became involved in bigger bridge projects, he managed more and more people, with more and more responsibility. And when the work on Lake Tisza was completed, the preparations for the largest bridge project ever undertaken by him and the Group began. In the case of the Kalocsa-Paks Danube bridge, Duna Aszfalt Zrt. was also responsible for the design, so they had to build the development from scratch. "It was a great honour to be involved in this from the very beginning with my colleagues."

The company won the contract in 2020, and the bridge's main contractor contract came into force in January 2021, before the works were taken over in February. He stressed that a team-building exercise was needed in parallel with the technical work, due to the scale of the project.

"In the 40 months we had, it took us about half a year to become an organisation that works like clockwork. When a problem arose, everyone knew that they had to propose a solution rather than explain the problem."

All levels received the information they needed immediately

He said that the team is extremely cohesive and technically prepared, and its strength is not that it only has one outstanding individual. "We had to make sure that the basic rotation rate was always there and could be increased if necessary, while everyone was moving together."

He stressed that the flow of information played a huge role. "The only way we were able to work together on documentation tasks or construction problems was to get the right information to the right level of notification immediately. Schedule planning and quality management could be concentrated in one hand thanks to the local BIM adaptation."

The same 150 work processes were carried out in all 87 cycles

One of the biggest challenges in the project was the construction of the bridge superstructure. He stressed that by the time they had got to this stage, they had got the BIM system well underway.

As an example, he said that when a technician recorded the results of a milestone check - whether it was a concrete strength test or a welded seam inspection - the project manager and the construction manager were immediately notified.

"This was very important in a schedule where we had to do the same workflow for 87 cycles, or bridge blocks, of free assembly. Within each cycle, there were 150 work processes, and in many cases they were running in parallel in four places at the same time. Using the BIM allowed project management to be so flexible and so responsive in real time to each problem that it did not lead to a backlog in the schedule."  

There were shipments that never arrived

How much attention had to be paid at the same time is clearly shown by the fact that the steel structure of the Tomori Paul Bridge was manufactured in the main girders at Duna Group's plant in Poland, and the secondary elements, bridge supports, in Hungary. In addition, there was a pre-assembly site in Csepel and technological structure pre-assembly in Ercsi. "At the same time, the assembly work was carried out at assembly sites on both banks of the Danube, and the construction of the embankment bridge over the Danube in four directions was also started."

In addition, there was a period when production and bridge construction were running in parallel. "We ordered the raw material for the fabrication based on the steel output created in the fabrication planning, during the period of Covid and then after the outbreak of the neighbouring war conflict, so there were deliveries that never arrived." Even so, the difficulties were overcome, and the first steel element was able to arrive on site in July 2021 for the construction of the Left Floodplain Bridge.

The Danube water level could completely overwrite the plans

In addition to the above, the Russian-Ukrainian war that broke out in February 2022 and other external factors have of course made it difficult to meet the deadline. "There have been periods of drought when the Danube was so low that we simply couldn't drive onto the barge bridge, or the barge with the piling machine couldn't get over the bark."

There have been examples of the opposite in the past 3 years. "When the water level is too high, the current speed is also increased, making it risky to carry out any kind of water work, especially as in many cases you can't even see the floating water."

He was frank about the project deadline:

"The 40 months available to us may seem like a long time, but the outstanding technical content and the river conditions justified the need. I can tell you that a great weight was lifted off everyone's shoulders at the moment of the handover in June this year."

It's not about who's telling the truth

When we asked him about the key factor of this challenging bridge project, he again highlighted the human aspect. "As I said before, humanity and humility: you have to get to know your colleagues or you shouldn't be stuck in the assigned status that a project manager gets."

This kind of attitude is also important because in many cases, as a manager, he has had to see into the operational level of various professionals. "When a problem arises that could affect the schedule and the economics, in many cases, effective decision-making requires an understanding of the technological depths to eliminate the main source of the problem. One of the key elements of effective management was the development and delegation of the right, prepared colleagues at the right level of responsibility, so that the most effective decision could be made at that level - while keeping the project management informed. In all cases, the focus was on real-time and effective decision-making, not on who gets to say what."

Strong mentoring from the background helped the team

The Engineer of the Month believes that he is not alone in saying that this was the highlight of his career.

"Not everyone can say they have built a Danube bridge, even if it is not the first one I have been involved in. But it has to be said that it was pure teamwork! I think everyone put their best into it, including the subcontractor and client level."

He added that in construction, solving technical problems is always a team effort: "You can go in the front, but if you don't have back-ups to support you moving forward, sooner or later you're on your own."

Another important factor highlighted was the strong mentoring at Duna Group. "The company's technical director for bridge construction, Tamás Tóth, was involved in the project from the bidding stage to the very end, so he mentored the project management team. The kind of background that the group has provided throughout, even in the face of extraordinary geopolitical circumstances, is uncommon."

However, he stressed the need for more than just professional support to provide the right background. "We must also mention our family members behind us, without whom this achievement would not have been possible. Thank you! For me, being a proud father of three children as a 'deputy project manager' at home is just as important as the work," he added with a smile.

"If it breaks, if it breaks, we'll do it all the way"

The Engineer of the Month has made no secret of the fact that he has had some sleepless nights while dealing with the difficulties. "Along with the physical implementation, there was also the mental implementation, including the project team, subcontractors and the client," he pointed out. "The idea that it was a great honour to be involved in such a project helped a lot. At the same time, with the construction manager colleagues who were close to me, we took the attitude from the start that if it breaks, if it tears, we'll see it through."

When we asked him to highlight his favourite element of the project, he chose a more general perspective.

"It's great to look back at where we started and where we've got to. What's more, we've created a lasting work of art, because this bridge will be here for over a hundred years. It gives us a similar sense of pride to see where we started from as individuals and where we have come as a team. Many of our colleagues have matured, grown up and learned a great deal during this project. But it also required that all the information was passed on to colleagues, that everyone knew why things were happening, and that we could learn from this together."

In conclusion, he said that the progress and learning seen here at the team member and team level foreshadowed the value of retaining and passing on this knowledge. "I think all this is crying out for the next big project where we can put this knowledge to further use."