Some 700 km of metro, urban railway and light rail tunnels, 680 km of main line as well as 320 km of road tunnels: transport tunnels with a total length of some 1700 km have been built in the Federal Republic of Germany according to current figures provided by the STUVA, the Research Association for Tunnels and Transportation Facilities Inc. And there is a growing need – not just seen nationally. According to a study by the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) every year some 4500–4700 km of new tunnels are added to the existing ones. These figures on the one hand demonstrate the dynamism of the tunnel construction market. However, given an estimated life cycle of over 100 years, tunnel maintenance and repair issues become increasingly relevant.
Swiss construction company Implenia was successful on the bid of a large-scale infrastructure project around 100 km southwest of Oslo, for which the contract worth 105 million euros (979 million Norwegian kroner) was signed on April 7, 2016. Near the town of Kongsberg, the Norwegian Public Roads Administration has commissioned new sections of the E134, a key road link between Oslo and the west coast.
The Follo Line project is currently the largest transport project in Norway. It consists of a 22 km new double track railway line between Oslo Central Station and the new station at Ski, south of Oslo. It will form the core part of Inter City development south of Oslo and is commissioned by the Norwegian National Railway Administration (Jernbaneverket). In early April 2016 the acceptance of a recently completed Double Shield Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) with a 9.9 m diameter for the Follo Line took place at the Herrenknecht plant in Schwanau, Germany. While two more high-speed tunnel borers are still in assembly, a fourth machine was being disassembled again for transportation.
To the west of Mexico City, in the State of Mexico, a key component in a massive wastewater overhaul is underway. A 5.8 km tunnel project, known as Túnel Emisor Poniente (TEP) II, will supplement an existing wastewater line built in the 1970s and is part of a solution to a serious groundwater problem in the area.
Lifting forces act on the segment rings once they vacate the shield tail during shield drives involving segmental lining and annual gap mortar grouting. These can lead to pronounced misalignments of neighbouring rings and damage to the annular joint as well as leakages. Stiff bedding for the young segmental rings can be assured at an early stage thus reducing flotation thanks to optimization of the targeted new development based on an explicit profile of requirements.
The 7.8 km long second tube of the Ulriken Tunnel represents a milestone in Norwegian tunnelling; for the first time a tunnel boring machine (TBM) is used to drive a railway tunnel. With a diameter of 9.3 m, the selected gripper TBM also has the largest diameter ever bored in Norway. After a general description of the project, the paper describes selected aspects of the TBM project.
The Gotthard Base Tunnel opens on June 1, 2016. Generally nobody is allowed to stay in the tunnel anymore. In order to prevent accidents when necessary maintenance work is performed and sections are blocked for the trains, the doors in the cross passages are monitored by the control system. If a door opens, train operation is stopped immediately. Each subsection from the sliding doors in the cross passages, to the emergency stops and the 50 Hz power supply is controlled by an independent control system. So-called head computers read the data from the local programmable logic controllers (PLC) and prepare it for the control systems, which are integrated in the tunnel and railway control technology. The information of the head computers is transferred to the higher-level tunnel control system.
The opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel on June 1, 2016 is an occasion for Siemag Tecberg to reflect on a project that involved unique challenges. The shaft hoisting system in the Sedrun part-section was built by Siemag Tecberg, who also operated the system during the construction phase. The hoisting plant was a critical logistical resource providing the means of access for construction supplies and of removal for the excavated material for the 8.5 km central section, which was driven by drill+blast.
The cooling for the underground worksite was provided by a further Siemag Tecberg technology, in the form of the “Pressure Exchange System” (P.E.S.). The P.E.S. has the function for efficiently supplying the underground cooling network with cold water from the surface.
On March 10, 2016, the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt) in Germany held a workshop on “Increasing IT Safety for Traffic and Tunnel Control Centres” in Bergisch Gladbach within the framework of the Cyber-Safe research programme. 40 experts from traffic and tunnel monitoring attended this workshop. The participants involved were tunnel operators, tunnel managers, IT specialists and safety officers.
For several weeks now a tram stop shelter has graced the STUVA halls in Cologne. It serves to direct theoretical findings gained within the scope of...
Under the aegis and participation of Dr.-Ing. Friedrich Krüger the Technical Academy in Esslingen is staging a seminar on “Protection against Vibration and secondary Noise Immissions in Rail Traffic” on June 15 and 16, 2016.
by Günter Girnau
Prof. Ernst-Ulrich Hiersche, honorary member of STUVA, died in Karlsruhe aged 84 at the end of 2015. For all of twenty years, from 1977 to 1997, he more than pulled his weight alongside me as an extremely active member of the STUVA board. His creative spirit spurred on our joint endeavours and his omni-present humour also helped ease the occasional entanglements that life presents. We shall all miss him greatly.
