The Tunnelling Manual has been a practical aid for clients, designers and contractors for four decades. It covers current developments and problem solutions, presents innovative results and documents...
The regular STUVA General Assembly was held on November 30, 2015, in conjunction with the 2015 STUVA Conference.
STUVA Board
Dipl.-Ing. Wolfgang Feldwisch and Bauassessor Dipl.-Ing. Otto Schließler...
STUVA’s International Forum for Tunnels and Infrastructure was held in the Dortmund Westfalenhallen from December 1 to 3, 2015. The outcome was highly impressive – the figures alone speak for themselves, establishing various new records for the STUVA Conference: more than 1800 conference participants and 165 exhibiting companies from the tunnel industry spread over around 6000 m² of display area. In addition to the subject area “Tunnelling”, “Tunnel Operation” was integrated in the STUVA Conference for the first time as a new segment with its own series of lectures.
Compressed air work – initially used in caissons for bridge foundations or tunnels completely excavated under compressed air conditions – has also become standard in TBM tunnelling in the last decades. As air only decompression had caused several cases of decompression illness (DCI) in the past, work in compressed air and the decompression procedures had to be reassessed. As a result oxygen decompression was implemented into the decompression procedure.
The A 93 federal motorway is 270 km long and passes through Bavaria from Hof in the north to Kiefersfeldern on the border with Austria. The roughly 840 m long Pfaffenstein Tunnel in Regensburg is one...
The Rastatt Tunnel represents the core engineering structure in planning approval section 1.2 of the new/upgraded Karlsruhe–Basle rail route. It will be tackled from May 2016 using two hydro-shield TBMs. The two single-track, roughly 4270 m long tunnel tubes will be lined with 50 cm thick reinforced concrete segments. The shallow location of the tunnel with minimal overburdens of less than 4 m, the subsidence-prone infrastructure and the presence of buildings, quite apart from having to undertunnel the Federbach low-lying conservation area protected by a frozen cover, place high demands on the engineering and process technology. Undertunnelling the busy Rhine Valley Railway, secured in advance by a ring-shaped brine freezing zone represents a particularly sophisticated task.
The rail route between Hanau and Nantenbach is part of the 112 km long Main-Spessart Railway between Hanau and Würzburg. It passes through the Schwarzkopf Tunnel built in 1854 and in urgent need of repair. Rather than this renovation scheme, a new route between Laufach and Heigenbrücken was decided on to eliminate the Schwarzkopf Tunnel. This project entails a roughly 8 km long, twin-track upgraded route running from Hanau to Nantenbach.
The 5425 m long Bosruck Tunnel between the states of Upper Austria and Styria has been in operation since 1983, and traffic has been running through a new second bore since summer 2013. After thorough refurbishment of the original bore, the fully improved twin-bore tunnel was opened for traffic on 19 October 2015. The Austrian autobahn operator ASFINAG has invested 280 million euros in the upgrading and modernisation of the tunnel.
The first of two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for the Rastatt Tunnel by manufacturer Herrenknecht was approved by the customer, the Tunnel Rastatt JV, on December 8, 2015 at the factory in Schwanau. The two mix-shields will each tackle a bore of the twin-tube tunnel completing them in carcass state. The rail tunnel is part of the new/upgraded Karlsruhe–Basle rail link.
The tunnel boring machine (TBM) driving the Filder Tunnel as part of the Stuttgart 21 infrastructure project has completed its first drive in the middle of November 2015. The Filder Tunnel (PfA 1.2) has a length of 9.5 km and links the main station of Stuttgart in the valley to the Filder Plain, which is about 155 m higher. Construction is executed by the ATCOST 21 consortium under the technical lead of Porr Bau GmbH.
