The start of excavation for the Koralm Railway’s Untersammelsdorf Tunnel in Carinthia, Austria, took place on July 7, 2017. According to Klaus Berger, ÖBB’s project manager, the last of six tunnels in...
On the morning of 12 August 2017, water and earth collapsed into the east bore of the Rastatt Tunnel in the course of construction works. The permanent way and tracks of the Rheintalbahn (Rhine valley...
At the north portal of the Ceneri Base Tunnel, installation of railway equipment in the east bore started in summer 2017. The 15.4 km long base tunnel between Camorino and Vezia will be equipped in the next few years with railway installations such as track, overhead, traction power and electricity supply, telecommunications and safety systems and control systems.
For commuters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monday, July 17, 2017, started with a very comfortable first ride in the new Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit (KVMRT) Line 1. The 51 km long rail line connects the Malaysian capital to outlying areas and is part of the governments vision to create a transportation backbone for the greater Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley region. The MRT from Sungai Buloh to Kajang (SBK Line or Line 1) is the first of three planned metro lines.
Los Angeles suffocates in traffic during rush hour. For this reason the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) is pushing ahead at full speed with the expansion of local transport...
With the breakthrough of the last two tunnel boring machines into the target pit of construction section 40 on June 12, 2017 the tunnel and pipe jacking work for the Emscher sewer has been completed.
The 9.5 km long Filder Tunnel connects Stuttgart Central Station, lying in a valley basin, with the Filder plateau located some 155 m higher. The four sections of its two tunnel tubes are being driven...
The 27.3 km long new Semmering Base Tunnel is the key structure of the new Austrian Südbahn line. On 30 June 2017, tunnelling works started on the third and last tunnel section, Grautschenhof.
More than 15 km of the tunnels for the Stuttgart–Ulm rail project located in the Stuttgart urban area lie in gypsum keuper containing anhydrite, which swells in contact with water. Owing to the swelling pressures that occur and the displacements caused by swelling, major damage has resulted in the case of many tunnels in the past. As a consequence, the corresponding sections of the tunnels in the Stuttgart urban area are driven absolutely dry.
In connection with tunnelling injections are executed with different goals in mind. An important objective in this case is sealing the rock immediately bordering the tunnel with the aim of preventing water being conducted along the tunnel shell. This is of particular significance if layers of rock which carry water as well as layers sensitive to it have to be penetrated, because the water must be prevented from being transported to the sensitive layers. Injections for sealing rock are also needed if the tunnel is partly produced with a closed invert and partly with an open invert or if waterproofing structures are required to prevent longitudinal conductivity. This report deals with the suitability of injection agents for the cited purpose.
When space is scarce in the big cities, construction targets the “third dimension”. This has been the case for quite some time now. Modern high-risers have been featured in urban centres in conurbations since the mid-1800s; the first skyscrapers appeared almost 100 years ago. However, the Swiss SCAUT initiative established just a few months ago is not directed sky high: “The third dimension after all, also leads in the other direction – down below”, as Felix Amberg, the president of the SCAUT development association maintains.
More than 1500 tunnellers from 52 countries met in Bergen, Norway, from June 9 to 14, 2017. The occasion was the 43rd Annual Meeting of the ITA (International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association) in conjunction with the 2017 World Tunnel Congress (WTC). The Tunnel Congress organised by the NFF (Norwegian Tunnelling Society) in collaboration with the ITA bore the slogan “Surface Challenges – Underground Solutions”. 52 of the 74 ITA member nations were present in Bergen.
The same applies for every tunnel project: segments must be at the right place at the right time. Towards this end, special demands are posed on the transport and storage of these weighty concrete...
Digitalisation in construction leads to a decisive advance: according to studies, up to 57% of the work performed in the construction process still has no added value, caused by mistakes and defects, waiting and search times, poorly coordinated sequences and lack of communication. With digitalisation, it should be possible in the future to exploit this potential, enabled by the use of innovative technologies like Concremote. The sensor solution from Doka delivers data of the temperature and strength development of concrete in real time.
In fall 2014 the Chinese company LNSS (Liaoning Censcience Industry Co. Ltd.) acquired the Caterpillar Tunneling Canada Corporation, thus obtaining all intellectual properties of former TBM manufacturer Lovat. A new company “Lovsuns Tunneling Canada” was set up in Toronto. In January 2017 Lovsuns shifted the Canadian TBM production to the LNSS facilities in China. Freelancing journalist Roland Herr spoke with Hongyu Xue, Managing Director of Lovsuns Tunneling Canada, about the reasons for the relocation of the TBM production, about Lovsun’s proposed role in the TBM business in the years ahead and about his view on the growing influence of China in the mechanized tunnelling market.
