Cement Plant Chimney

Built in 1896, the Leimen Cement Plant is regarded as the parent plant of HeidelbergCement. In the more than one hundred years of its existence, it has repeatedly been the pioneer for new developments, be it in furnace construction, grinding technology or environmental protection. From the middle of the 1990s, the company laid the foundation for the restructuring of the factory premises into an industrial estate with green areas and historic machines.

This was also the time when a new freestanding reinforced concrete chimney with three internal flues was constructed; its aesthetic Y-shaped volume with an impressive height of about 85 m has since acted as the landmark of the cement plant visible from afar. The central chimney bundles three exhaust pipes with diameters of 1.65 m respectively 2.00 m. Their feed pipes required three symmetrically arranged recesses with a width of 2 x 2.90 m and a height of 8.20 m in the base area so that the structure is supported by three solid corner pillars.

Its dimensions of the sides continuously decrease from the bottom to the chimney top in the shape of a parabola. Consequently, the maximum width of the chimney shaft is about 10.38 m at the foundation section, whereas it is only 6.59 m at the outlet. The structure is supported by nine foundation piles with a diameter of 1.50 m each.

At the top, it is covered with a 25 cm thick reinforced concrete slab, which is penetrated by the three flues that exceed the top edge of the shaft by 2 m. Whilst the front faces of the chimney in the base area show a wall thickness of 1.00 m, this thickness continuously decreases up to a height of +15.40 m to 25 cm. The sides, by contrast, are continuously 25 cm thick. Six platforms are arranged inside the chimney, with the lowest one providing the bearing for the three flues at a height of +9.50 m. A measuring platform is installed at +17.00 m, which extends at the spandrels into closed balcony-like protrusions. All other platforms are used for technical services and are accessible via internal ascending ladders.