CONSTRUCTION SOLUTIONS OF THE OLD ŽEŽELJ BRIDGE IN THE SPHERE OF INNOVATIVE ACHIEVEMENTS IN DOMESTIC BRIDGE ENGINEERING

<p><em>In this paper, a retrospective of the construction solutions of the old Žeželj Bridge on the Danube in Novi Sad will be presented. It was built between 1957 and 1961 and was designed by academician Branko Žeželj, a civil engineer after whom the bridge was colloquially named. The bridge consists of two arches with spans of 211 and 165.5 meters, with the roadway suspended from them. An innovative radial cable prestressing of the arch cross-section was applied, a method patented by engineer Branko Žeželj. Upon completion, and for many years afterward, it was the bridge with the largest arch span—both the largest arch in Europe and the longest-spanning arch in the world for railway traffic. The construction system of this bridge was unique in the world and was first applied in Yugoslavia, serving as a model for many bridges worldwide. For this reason, Branko Žeželj was awarded at the World Congress for Prestressing (FIP) held in Rome in 1960 for his significant innovations in prestressed concrete construction technology. As proof of the bridge’s high-quality construction, it was only destroyed after six strikes during the NATO aggression in 1999. Nineteen years later, a new steel bridge, visually reminiscent of the original, was opened.</em></p>