Since the mid-19th century the River Emscher in the German Ruhr District has been used for disposing of wastewater. In the early 1990s, it was decided to replace the existing open wastewater system with a sewer system and to restore the River Emscher to its natural state. The major Emscher conversion project is divided up into a large number of individual schemes, with construction phase 30 being the biggest. By applying the pipe jacking method interlinking conduit sections with section lengths in excess of 1100 m are produced.
In mid-June Tunnel Boring Machine Ellie broke through into a cavern 40 m beneath Stepney Green, in the East End of London. The breakthrough marked the structural completion of tunnels for Crossrail’s north east spur, between Whitechapel and Pudding Mill Lane. According to Andrew Wolstenholme, Crossrail Chief Executive, over 80 per cent of the new rail tunnels for Europe’s largest infrastructure project had been completed with the breakthrough at Stepney Green. Roughly one month later another two percentage points were added to this quota, when Crossrail announced at the end of July that the last of 250 000 concrete segments, used to line the tunnels of Europe’s largest infrastructure project had been manufactured.
The Deutsche Bahn opened the new single-track Kaiser Wilhelm Tunnel on the Moselle route near Cochem on April 7, 2014. Work on the new 4242 m long tunnel started four years ago.
Tunnelling as one of the most complex tasks of civil engineering will be an essential component of the econstra 2014. On October 22 and 23 the fair for construction engineering, architecture and...
Gerlinde Kretschmann, the wife of the Baden-Württemberg regional premier, Winfried Kretschmann, as tunnel sponsor officially inaugurated the start of building for the Albabstieg Tunnel at the end of...
The Kurhessenbahn Railway’s Zierenberg Tunnel which opened back in 1897 has a single track and is 816 m long. As renovation is uneconomic a new 937 m tunnel bore is to be set up parallel 13 to 20 m...
There is a great tradition marking the underground construction industry in Switzerland. The branch is to receive a new gathering point at Lungern in the form of the bui – the Brünig Underground...
The VersuchsStollen Hagerbach (Hagerbach Test Gallery) AG staged a deminar (combination of demonstration and seminar) in its test gallery at Flums-Hochwiese/Switzerland in March. It was chaired by Dipl.-Ing. Volker Wetzig and focused on shotcrete. After principles relating to dimensioning and the application of reinforcing concepts experts passed on their findings in conjunction with calculations and application backed up by practical demonstrations.
The Swiss Tunnelling Society (STS/FGU) of the Swiss Engineers and Architects Association (SIA) staged its conference, the Swiss Tunnel Congress (STC), in Lucerne on June 11 and 12, 2014 with reports on the new rail routes crossing the Alps (NEAT) involving the Gotthard and Ceneri Base Tunnels as well as other national and international projects. On the first day of the STC more than 800 participants from 15 nations attended the lectures on the latest findings during the building of topical underground construction projects and visited the exhibition put on by more than 40 companies over an extended area in the Culture and Congress Centre (KKL).
Switzerland is a country of tunnels. It is characterized by the tricky topography with a large proportion of mountains, the high degree of mobility and the effort to provide quantitatively good...
