TunnelTalk Annual Review 2012 promotional issue

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WELCOME TO THE DIGITAL PREVIEW OF THE TUNNELTALK ANNUAL REVIEW

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17www.TunnelTalk.com TunnelTalk ANNUAL REVIEW 2011

Brenner Baseline connection: Let the works begin!

Priority Project 1 that proposes a high capacity rail route from Berlin in the north to Palermo on Sicily in the south. The twin tube tunnel will link directly to an existing rail bypass tunnel around Innsbruck to become the world’s longest railway tunnel complex.

The Innsbruck bypass links further to 66km of new rail capacity through the Lower Inn Valley to the German border. The majority of the fi rst 40km of the line to Kundl lies underground in lengths of TBM

and NATM mined tunnels. As part of the TEN-T Priority Project, the Lower Inn Valley project also received EU funding support.

Preliminary work on the massive Brenner Baseline tunnel undertaking began at both portals with exploratory headings. These are designed to investigate characteristics and behaviour of rock conditions likely to be encountered to minimise risks and verify budget cost calculations. The exploratory tunnel will be used for drainage and eventually as the

Segmentally lined TBM exploratory tunnel

Patrick Reynolds, TunnelTalk

Agreement in April 2011 of its billions of Euro in funding marked the offi cial start of Europe’s most

ambitious infrastructure project. EU Transport Commissioner Siim Callas, with the Austrian and Italian transport Ministers Doris Bures and Altero Matteoli, gathered with other offi cials in Innsbruck, Austria, to celebrate an agreement that secures the estimated €9.7 billion (US$13.8 billion) capital investment for the Brenner Base Tunnel and launches its construction project realisation.

Austria and Italy have agreed to share the cost of the project with additional funding from the European Union. While the approach of Austria and the EU is to give periodic assessments and assurances on funding for the trans-Alpine link, the Italian Government approved its contribution for the full duration of the project, in November 2010. About 30% of the total budget is to be met by the EU with the balance funded equally between Austria and Italy.

The 55km (34 mile) mega-tunnelling project through the Alps to link Innsbruck, Austria with Franzensfeste (Fortezza) in Italy is a cornerstone of the EU’s Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T)

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TunnelTalk ANNUAL REVIEW 2011 www.TunnelTalk.com68

The world’s population is on a vast urban migration. By 2050, an estimated 70% of the world’s people

will live in urban areas, up from the current 50%. Developing the infrastructure to accommodate such huge populations and provide urbanization that is effective, adequate and sustainable is the task of city planners and engineers.

At the 2011 ITA World Tunnel Congress in Helsinki, the Association’s Committee on Underground Space (ITACUS) staged the opening event of a global initiative to promote the use of underground space as a crucial element in the quest for building sustainable cities that are resilient to both natural and man-induced disasters.

In advancing its Global Perspective, ITACUS will work with three international organisations. The fi rst is the International Federation for Municipal Engineering (IFME), which was formed in 1960 as part of the UNESCO organization, and today has more than 20 member nations. In Helsinki Dan-Henrik Långström, President of the Finnish Association of Municipal Engineering signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ITACUS to seal its commitment to the Global Perspective Programme.

The second partner organisation is the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP), which will join ITACUS for the Global Perspective session in Bangkok in May 2012 and in 2013, ICLEI, the Association for Local Governments for Sustainability, will join ITACUS to discuss

the programme theme Deciding Better and Resilient Cities in Geneva, Switzerland.

Through its status as a registered non-governmental organisation of the United Nations (UN) since 1987, the ITA (International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association) has also entered into partnership with two UN bodies – the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and the UNHabitat Human Settlements Programme.

Both organisations share a mandate to address the global issue of mass migration to mega cities, urbanisation and the resilience of modern cities to cope with natural disasters and the effects of climate change. A principal aim of the three-year Global Perspective initiative is to present a policy document, which will be supported by the city planners, city governments and city engineers represented internationally through ISOCARP, ICLEI and IFME, and have that policy document adopted by the two UN partners.

In her presentation in Helsinki, Helena Molin-Valdes, Deputy Director of the UN-ISDR, challenged the association of tunnellers to join a mission to infl uence the design and development of modern resilient cities. After describing her visit to the iconic SMART stormwater management and road tunnel in Kuala Lumpur, Molin-Valdes said: “We need you to engage with us to share knowledge and present the reality of tunnelling and underground space engineering as part of

the solutions for developing resilient cities.” In response, Han Admiraal, Chairman of

ITACUS, explained that now is the time for the industry to demonstrate its importance in helping address the challenges that the planet is facing. “We have to turn our passion for tunnelling and underground space into a global responsibility towards sustainability and resilient cities as a justifi cation for the work we do.”

Underground space realitiesOther guest speakers and presenters in Helsinki described how they encounter the use of underground space in their day-to-day professional lives.

Hannu Penttilä, Deputy Mayor for City Planning in Helsinki, described how the city is the fi rst in the world to adopt an Underground Masterplan as part of its urban development policy. This is facilitated, he explained, by the fact that 60% of land in the city is owned by the local government and that the city is built on solid granite which is highly favourable for excavating cost-effective underground facilities.

Jacques Besner, an independent consultant from Canada and former Secretary-General of the Associated Research Centres for the Urban Underground Space, described how 32km of underground space in Montreal, started in 1962, was fi nanced by private fi nance through PPPs (public private partnerships).

In Latvia, Andis Kublacovs, Manager of the Northern Transport Corridor Project

In search of resilient citiesShani Wallis, TunnelTalk

New York City prepared for the worst in August 2011 when weather tracking models had New York and

its 19 million residents in a direct path of Hurricane Irene. As it raged across the Atlantic, several major tunneling projects scrambled to secure their job sites.

In advance of the hurricane, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered mandatory evacuations of low-lying and coastal communities and shut down the city’s subway.

Three of the city’s largest transit construction projects were in the

evacuation order zone: the No 7 Line Subway extension on Manhattan’s west side; the 2nd Avenue Subway works; and the soft ground TBM tunnels in Queens on the East Side Access railway project and its Manhattan running tunnels and station caverns under Grand Central Terminal.

Work was suspended on all the projects, with The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) directing all tunneling contractors to secure their construction sites.

Cranes were secured appropriately in anticipation of the high winds; loose

materials on job sites were removed; and remaining materials and structures bolted down and secured.

In the end Hurricane Irene blew through leaving a big mess but little severe damage. Service resumed on much of the Subway system on Monday morning after closing at noon on Saturday, and all three of the city’s major tunneling projects escaped unscathed. n

References• New York tunneling projects brace for Irene

- TunnelTalk, Aug 2011

New York tunneling projects prepare forand weather Hurricane Irene

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From left: Hurricane Irene approaches; Aqua barriers prevented the underground fl ooding; Flood wall holding back the water

Paula Wallis, TunnelTalk


Signed agreement with IFME (from left) ITACUS Chairman, Han Admiraal; President of the Finnish IFME Dan-Henrik Långström; and ITA President, In Mo Lee

for Riga City Council, described how an immersed tube is being developed for the river crossing of a €1 billion city ring road highway project to preserve the landscape of what is the largest of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites. At another part of the project, a bored tunnel, although 40% more expensive than a surface alignment, runs deep beneath a cemetery. “Latvia has no expertise or experience in building tunnels and visiting experts have assured us that there will be no effect at all on the cemetery,” said Kublacovs. “We must trust them.”

It was the presentation by Prof Tetsuya Hanamura (retired) of Okayama University in Japan that gripped the attention. He described, after his own visit to the stricken area, the consequences of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan’s east coast in March 2010.

“Although a large magnitude 9 event, earthquake damage was small compared to the wreckage by the tsunami. Most loss of life was due to drowning and while many surface buildings were swept away by a wall of water, there was little or no structural damage to underground infrastructure.”

He reported that damage to utility tunnels was minimal and that both water supply and sewerage systems were either unaffected or restored quickly.

Electricity and shallow gas supply lines were damaged badly but underground LNG (liquefi ed natural gas) storage facilities in the zone were safe. “There was no damage to the subway or railway tunnels in the area, at all, and the road tunnel at the Sendai Airport was only fl ooded.”

The gravest consequence of the disaster was the meltdown of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant near Tokyo. A tsunami wave of 15m swept over the 5.7m seawall and completely

fl ooded the plant. The loss of electricity knocked out the cooling seawater systems for the reactors, which then overheated, failed and released disastrous radiation into the atmosphere.

Prof Hanamura raised the suggestion that all of this might have been avoided had the power plants been built underground. Approximately 2,000 nuclear test explosions have been conducted underground, he said, and “apart from some incidents in the early stages, no signifi cant escape of radiation material has occurred as a result.”

Considering the prospect of locating nuclear power plants underground in Japan, he said that mountain locations for such underground facilities are not possible as large dams for reservoirs of cooling water are not permitted in Japan due to the possibility of dam failure by earthquake activity. The possibility of building underground nuclear power plants close to the sea would need greater fail-safe design considerations to address the potential of earthquake and tsunami events.

Discussion forumDuring the open discussion, cost, funding and procurement were central topics.

Jacques Besner explained how the PPP model had come under much criticism in Montreal. “In one instance the City had to rent the public space back from the developer to keep it open and maintain access to the metro station during its full operating schedule. There were also issues of deciding who is responsible for maintenance of the structures; the developer or the municipality.”

Harold Wagner of Austria suggested a network of small-diameter TBM tunnels built to transport freight in and waste out using remote controlled trains. “This would

I January 2011, a torrent of fl oodwater swept down the Brisbane River wiping out all before it and threatening

catastrophic inundation of the state capital. As well as preparing for the worst, the city’s $4.8 billion Airport Link construction project doubled precautions to avert fl ooding of the tunnelling works.

A total 15km of tunnelling for the project is advancing from four main construction sites, each of them lying near one of Brisbane’s many waterways or in low-lying areas north of the river.

An additional levee was constructed within the perimeter fl ood bund of the Bowen Hills worksite, adjacent

Brisbane avertsunderground works inundation

Thames Water Utilities Ltd has appointed Black & Veatch to appraise fl ooding resilience at

a number of its key water treatment assets within London and the Thames Valley.

The work is part of a £4.9 billion investment program in 2010-2015 to help protect infrastructure and maintain water security for the utility’s 8.7 million customers in London and its service area.

Thames Water is the UK’s largest water and sewerage company. Some 15% of Greater London has some extent of known tidal and/or river and stream fl ood risk. Black & Veatch has worked with Thames Water for more than 20 years.

The scope of work for this contract includes an asset vulnerability assessment that considers the risk of failure to individual assets, and risk to the works as a whole, for various fl ood risk scenarios, including a 1-in-1,000-year event. n

Thames Water fl ood resilience

reduce the time and energy wasted in traffi c congestion on the surface.”

In her video link from Geneva, Helena Molin-Valdes said that the cost of the SMART tunnel in Kuala Lumpur has been paid back in just the amount of non-losses of the fl ooding events that it has prevented. “This is powerful data for us to use in the promotion of underground projects,” she said.

Nick Barton, a professor of rock mechanics in Norway and Brazil, suggested that going deeper with longer tunnels into bedrock might be cheaper than selecting shorter shallower tunnels in softer overlying soils. “Deeper tunnels in rock can be a quarter or a third the price of a shallower tunnel excavation and up to 10 times faster to complete,” he said. “If you are lucky enough to have good rock under your

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Brisbane underwater

to Breakfast Creek, to protect the underground works, and as further precaution, tunnelling activities ceased, primary equipment and materials were removed from the tunnels to higher ground and the Bowen Hills site offi ce was also evacuated.

Brisbane’s other major element of underground highway infrastructure, the CLEM7 highway tunnel, passes 60m under the river and was also a concern. The 4.8km long twin tube highway tunnel is designed for fl ood conditions that would see water levels higher than the 5.5m levels predicted for this event but the concern to perhaps close the tunnel was real. As it was, the tunnel remained open and was one of few major highway arteries able to offer a safe alternative for travelling across the river during the crisis. Tolls on the concession tunnel were suspended until after the peak fl ood subsided. nReferences• Brisbane’s Airport Link powering ahead

- TunnelTalk, Jun 2010

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One of the largest tunnelling challenges ever for Hong Kong has been getting underway on site with

preparatory works to mark commencement of the high-speed Express Rail Link (XRL).

The project, with an almost 26km underground alignment, will extend from Hong Kong to the border with mainland China as part of a larger high-speed scheme that will join the new railway to the growing cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou.

The large transport scheme will further tighten the economic and social bonds along this thriving axis, and tie-in to China’s national rail network beyond Guangdong Province.

MTR Corporation is developing the XRL project on the Hong Kong side of the border. The dedicated, entirely underground corridor was given over to the strategic transport link approved by the Hong Kong Government to proceed towards completion by 2015.

Within Hong Kong, the underground route from central Kowloon to the border, is split into a chain of contract packages on which a variety of tunnelling methods are to be employed. Evacuation is predominantly drill+blast for single tube stretches, with twin tube TBM sections, and some cut-and-cover excavation.

XRL tunnelsFor XRL, the Hong Kong section requires about 51.4km of main line tunnelling, to run through hills, beneath villages, and under the Shenzhen River.

In plan, the route is formed by two S-curves, the fi rst on a relatively tight alignment out of downtown Kowloon for about 40% of the line, and the second on a more relaxed route up through the New Territories to the border into Shenzhen.

The rail line passes below a low mountain range as the tight S-curve transits into the second S-curve with two other areas of high cover being short ranges of hills on either side. Maximum cover on the alignment is up to a little more than 600m with the low, fl at elevations in built-up areas ranging between 5m-55m below ground surface.

Geology along the alignment comprises varied rock strata, including volcanics and granites, as well as soft and mixed ground conditions.

The tunnels will be of varying internal diameter. The twin tube TBM sections range between 8.15m and 8.7m i.d. and are linked by cross passages, whereas stretches of single-tube, double-track drill+blast excavation are about 15m wide. From the total tunnelling required, there will be approximately 14km of drill+blast, 17km (2 x 8.5km) of parallel TBM bores, 4km (2 x 2km) of cut-and-cover, and 2.4km (2 x 1.2km) of cut-and-cover for works near the terminus at West Kowloon.

Along the alignment there will be eight ventilation buildings and emergency access points, and at Shek Kong there will be an emergency rescue station (ERS) and stabling sidings (SSS) on a 2km long x 150m wide corridor.

ProcurementFollowing approval by the Executive Council of Hong Kong’s Government in October 2009, procurement was quickly underway with a staggered programme of bids and awards for nine principal underground packages. Calls for pre-qualifi cation were issued in the second and third quarters of 2009 and awards of contracts were spread through 2010.

While preparatory works began in early 2010, notices to proceed on the large lump-sum contracts for the main underground works were issued up to late 2010 (Table 1) with main excavation starting in 2011.

Tunnelling schedule: Commencing 2011 C811ABachy Soletanche-Laing O’Rourke JV cut-and-cover works for the south approach tunnel at the terminus involve construction of a 270m long tunnel to run below the existing Kowloon Southern Link tunnel. This includes a 170m long piled section.

C811BGammon-Leighton JV for the north tunnel will excavate 430m of cut-and-cover piled tunnel.

C822Leighton Contractors (Asia) will excavate a 7.7km long, single tube, drill+blast tunnel plus a 2.5km long ventilation tube, a 120m

Hong Kong express to mainland China

Patrick Reynolds, TunnelTalkRoute to West Kowloon Terminus

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It is hard to say when the era of the mega tunnelling machine started. There was a time when 10m in diameter

was considered the largest likely, or indeed possible. But whatever was once considered the technological limit, there are now many dozens of machines exceeding the 10m diameter size. This, in turn, increases the benchmark for current mega-machine criteria.

Discussions in the past have considered the manufacture of the main bearing a limiting factor but these can now be designed and delivered in sections and built into machines on site. A limit to the

size and load of a single component to job sites is also a controlling barrier.

Another consideration is application of the thrust needed to advance such mega machines. For soft ground TBMs, there is a controlling factor on the number and power of thrust rams needed to apply the force, as well as the surface area and ability of the precast concrete lining segments to accept the load.

Overcoming the tremendous torque generated by the massive cutterheads as they excavate the face is perhaps the most limiting factor today, together with the practicalities of operating and maintaining such enormous machines. n

References• New Zealand joins the mega-TBM

tunnelling set - TunnelTalk, August 2011

• Russia confi rms order for largest TBM ever - TunnelTalk, Aug 2011

• A second mega-TBM river crossing for Nanjing - TunnelTalk, Aug 2011

• Robbins TBM rolls into hard rock history - TunnelTalk, May 2011

• Seville SE-40 Highway Tunnels - TunnelTalk, April 2010

• Giant TBM accepted and heading for Italy - TunnelTalk, Dec 2010

• Japanese machine for Seattle’s Alaskan Way mega drive - TunnelTalk, July 20011

Tracking the world’s mega-TBMsTunnelTalk reporting

Start date

Country Project TBM manufacturer Diameter

1994 Japan Trans Tokyo Bay Highway Tunnel 8 machines3 Kawasaki, 3 Mitsubishi, 1 Hitachi, 1 IHI

14.14m

1997 Germany Hamburg 4th Elbe River Highway Tunnel 1 Herrenknecht Mixshield 14.2m

2000 The Netherlands Groenehart double-track rail tunnel 1 NFM Technologies 14.87m

2001 Russia Moscow Lefortovo Highway Tunnel 1 Herrenknecht MixshieldEx-Elbe project machine

14.2m

2004 Japan Tokyo Metro 1 IHI EPBM 14.18m

2004 China Shangzhong Road Tunnel, Shanghai 1 NFM TechnologiesEx-Groenehart machine

14.87m

2004 Russia Moscow Silberwald Highway Tunnel 1 Herrenknecht MixshieldEx-Elbe project machine

14.2m

2005 Spain Madrid Calle 30 Highway Tunnels 1 Herrenknecht1 Mitsubishi

15.2m15.0m

2006 Canada Niagara Water Diversion Tunnel* 1 Robbins hard rock gripper TBM Rebuilt Manapouri tailrace tunnel machine

14.4m

2006 China Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel 2 Herrenknecht Mixshields 15.43m

2006 China Jungong Road Tunnel, Shanghai 1 NFM slurry shield Ex-Groenehart machine 14.87m

2007 China Bund Tunnel, Shanghai 1 Mitsubishi EPBM 14.27m

2008 China Nanjing Yangtze River Tunnel* 2 Herrenknecht Mixshields 14.93m

2009 China Yingbinsan Road Tunnel, Shanghai 1 Mitsubishi EPBM Ex-Bund Tunnel machine 14.27m

2010 China Qianjiang Subaqueous Tunnel, HangzhouSecond tube currently under construction

1 Herrenknecht Mixshield Ex-Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel machine

15.43m

2010 Spain Seville SE-40 Highway Tunnels* 2 NFM Technologies EPBMs 14.00m

2011 Italy A1 highway Spavo Tunnel* 1 Herrenknecht EPBM 15.55m

2011 China Hong Mei Road, Shanghai 1 Herrenknecht Mixshield 14.9m

2011 China Weisan Road Tunnel, Nanjing* 2 IHI/Mitsubishi/CCCC slurry TBMs 14.93m

2011 USA Alaskan Way SR99 bored tunnel* 1 Hitachi Zosen EPBM 17.45m

2011 Russia Orlovsky Tunnel, Saint Petersburg* 1 Herrenknecht Mixshield Order confi rmed 2011

19.25m

2011 New Zealand Waterview motorway tunnel, Auckland* 1 EPBM to be ordered Approx 14m

* TunnelTalk reference below


The world’s largest hard rock TBM received a hero’s welcome in March 2011, following a long and tortured

drive that tested the resolve of all involved. No shortage of dignitaries, media and invited guests were present to witness the massive Robbins TBM’s breakthrough, marking the end of excavation on the 10.2km (6.3 mile) Niagara Tunnel for Ontario Power Generation (OPG).

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, OPG CEO Tom Mitchell, Strabag CEO Dr Hans Peter Haselsteiner, and Robbins CEO Lok Home were among those present at the celebration as well as hundreds of workers.

“It is terrifi c for a civil engineer like me, having started out on such an ambitious project, to see the excavation come to a successful end,” said Rick Everdell who began his career with OPG’s predecessor, Ontario Hydro, and has remained with the project almost 30 years through its various incarnations, and rising to the position of Project Director for the client. “The project has certainly had its share of setbacks, including an economic downturn and reorganization of the power industry in the late 1990s. That forced the cancellation of an earlier tender process and reduced the project from its original two tunnels plus a new powerhouse, to the single tunnel. Then there were challenging ground conditions once we got into excavation. Still, after four and a half years of tunneling, the TBM is fi nally at the fi nish line.”

Strabag won the design-build contract in August 2005. Having successfully completed the previous largest ever hard rock TBM tunnel on the Manapouri

hydroscheme in New Zealand about six years earlier, the Austrian contractor was uniquely experienced. Strabag’s Project Manager in New Zealand, Ernst Gschnitzer, would also take the reins at Niagara. But almost from the start, the excavation was hijacked by extensive overbreak that slowed advance rates to a crawl.

Dark days“The most challenging days were in 2007 when the TBM entered the Queenston Formation before the St David Gorge and at a maximum depth of 140m (459ft),” said Everdell. “Signifi cant overbreak, meter after meter, essentially blew out the schedule.”

John Tait, Project Manager for Hatch

Breakthrough ends challenging journeyat Niagara

Paula Wallis, TunnelTalk

Tunnel by the numbers

Tunnel 10.2km long (6.3 miles)

TBM 14.4m diameter TBM (47.2ft)

Excavated material 1.7 million m3 (5.6 million ft3)

Concrete for liner 400,000m3 (1.3 million ft3)

Tunnel capacity 500m3 (1,640ft3) of water per second

Power generation 1.6 billion kilowatt hours annually

Severe overbreak led to alignment change

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Who’s who

Client Ontario Power Generation (OPG)

Construction Management Hatch Mott MacDonald (USA)

Contractor Strabag (Austria)

Associated Companies

Tunnel Designers ILF (Austria) and Morrison Hershfi eld (Canada)

TBM supplier Robbins (USA)

TBM trailing gear Rowa (Switzerland)

Concrete lining operations Bystag (Germany)

Continuous conveyor system H+E Logistics (Germany)

Ventilation system Cogemacoustic (France)

Blasting operations Castonguary Blasting (Canada)

Intake structure McNally International (Canada)

Grouting gallery at intake site Dufferin Construction (Canada)

Cofferdams Bermingham Construction (Canada)


Long TBM headings of more than 11km each, plus an additional 9km of NATM excavation, combine to form one of

the world’s longest tunnels. The 44.6km Pahang-Selangor raw water delivery tunnel in Malaysia is more than 50% complete (to mid-April 2012) and about 3% ahead of schedule towards the end goal of increasing water supply to the country’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

Work on the project started in mid-2009 when a ¥38 billion (about US$465 million) contract was awarded to a joint venture of Shimizu and Nishimatsu of Japan (30% each), with local partners UEMB and IJM (20% each), to excavate the long, 5m diameter tunnel through the mountains from Karak in Pahang State to Langat, near Kuala Lumpur, in Selangor State (Fig 1).

With the overburden of dense tropical jungle rising to more than 1,200m above the alignment, locations for access adits were limited. To progress excavation, and have the tunnel completed within the 60-month contract period, the JV elected to use three new High Performance 5.23m diameter main beam gripper TBMs from Robbins for the longest reaches beneath the highest overburden, and conventional NATM through sections of lower cover at the portals where geological conditions

were predicted to be less TBM favourable. “The longest heading is 23km with no

intermediate adit or access,” explained Deputy Project Manager of the JV, Yoshikuni Nakano, of Nishimatsu. “We have two TBMs working towards each other on this critical path element and breakthrough is currently estimated for about May 2013.”

TBM programmeThe long tunnel is divided into seven faces, three long TBM drives of 11.77km, 11.80km and 11.30km, from Adits 4, 3, and 2 respectively, plus four NATM headings, one in each direction from Adit 1 upstream, another from the inlet to Adit 1, and the fourth from the outlet portal to Adit 4 downstream (Fig 1).

When TunnelTalk visited the project in March (2012), the TBMs were about 6km, 4km and 4km each into their respective drives with TBM2 making best headway. Working from Adit 4 through softer, more fractured granite of about 120MPa UCS, rates of up to 40m/day, of two 12hr shifts per day with a maintenance schedule of as long as needed during the first shift per day, were being logged. Latest reports from the site confirm that this TBM has now passed the 7.2km mark, and is projected to be the first to complete its drive in about October 2012.

The other two TBMs were having a tougher time. TBM1, heading on a gentle down hill gradient of 1.9‰ from Adit 2, was at a standstill during the visit, held up by a fault zone of loose crumbling rock that was falling away to create a large void above the 5.2m diameter cutterhead.

“Crews are having to stabilise the zone with forward consolidation grouting,” explained Andy Birch of Robbins and Site Manager of a team of six Robbins Field Technicians engaged full time on the project by the JV - an electrician and a mechanic at each TBM site. “Once the area is secure, the TBM can advance into stable rock on the other side and be away again.”

This was not the first geological anomaly encountered, or the largest. “Not all the problem areas encountered have been fault zones exactly,” explained Frank Pittard, lead geologist with the construction JV. “Some have been areas of loose, closely-jointed rock with ground water and there have been fault zones with gouge. The most difficult section to date was in the TBM2 drive, about 1.5km from Adit 3, where one fault zone proved particularly extensive. More than 400m of difficult rock conditions were encountered. It included zones of gouge and hard rock and had also a large cavity that extended at least

Mountain drives forwater supply in Malaysia

Shani Wallis, TunnelTalk

Fig 1. Cross section of the long water delivery tunnel and its points of attack

Left: Three 5.2m diameter High Performance TBMs are completing the longest headings under the highest overburden; right: Drilling pre-excavation injection holes into a void fault zone

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TunnelTalk ANNUAL REVIEW 2012

Two subsea tunnels totalling 20km

in length have been given the green

light by the Norwegian Government.

The estimated US$1 billion dual

carriageway road tunnels, which have been

subject to alignment changes, geotechnical

and seismic studies for 35 years, are to be

financed partly by regional and national

government sources, but mostly by toll

income. Commenting on the announcement

by the Norwegian Highways Department,

the Norwegian Tunnelling Society

described the mega-project as technically

challenging. Parliament is expected to

ratify the Cabinet’s decision to progress the

Ryfast Project to a construction tendering

phase later this month. Procurement and

construction of this most ambitious of

Norway’s long list of undersea tunnels is on

scheduled for completion and an opening

to traffic in 2018.

Norwegian Roads Authority (Statens

Vegwesen) Project Manager Geir Tor

Espedal said: “This is a breakthrough for

Ryfast. We are looking forward to the

start of construction. Many questioned

this project but the thorough preparation

work that has been carried out has proved

decisive. The contracts for construction

are so large that we expect interest from

foreign companies.”

The project comprises two linked

undersea tunnel sections:

• The 14.3km Solbakk tunnel linking

Solbakk and the ferry port at Tau in the

Strand municipality, and the island of

Hundwåg, via an alignment under the

small island of Hidle where a ventilation

shaft is planned. At its deepest point it

will sit 290m below sea level, with an

average depth below the sea of 50m

(Fig 2), making it the deepest and the

longest of all Norway’s subsea tunnels.

• The 5.7km Hundvåg tunnel which will

link Hundwåg and the mainland city

of Stavanger on the west coast of

Norway, with an exit ramp at Buøy (Fig

3). Engineering design consultant

Norconsult completed the alignment and

planning studies earlier this year and will be

involved in the tendering process, which is

expected to start in Autumn this year.

At Stavanger the subsea tunnels are

planned to connect with a new 3.9km road

tunnel that already has secured funding

and is due to be constructed on the main

E-39 highway. Once all the tunnelling work

is complete the ferry service that currently

links Stavanger and Strand will cease.

Norway is the world’s leader in

construction of subsea highway rock

tunnels, with more than 29 in operation

and others in design and construction. The

country’s first undersea road tunnel, the

2.6km Vardø link above the Arctic Circle,

opened in 1981. n

References• Norway’s newest undersea road tunnel

opens - TunnelTalk, December 2009

• Links across the waters: Straits Crossings

conference report - TunnelTalk, January

2010

Left: Aerial view over Stavanger and

Strand

Peter Kenyon, TunnelTalk

Left: Fig 2. Solbakk tunnel cross section Right: Fig 3. Hundvåg tunnel cross section

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www.TunnelTalk.com TunnelTalk ANNUAL REVIEW 2012

Three North American and three

South American projects that

involve tunnelling have made it

onto a prestigious list of the world’s top-

100 infrastructure projects, produced

by international consultancy KPMG and

as selected by an independent panel of

judges spanning all sectors of construction

and project finance.

In total 11 of the 100 selected projects,

recognised for their scale, feasibility,

complexity and innovation, involve a large

element of tunnelling. One of the projects,

the proposed 19km immersed tube

Fehmarnbelt Crossing linking Denmark

and Germany, appears in two of the 10

categories (Global Connectivity and Urban

Regeneration). Other tunnelling projects

that made the top-100 list also include:

• The East Side Access railway project in

New York, USA

• California’s high speed rail project

• The Port of Miami highway tunnel in

Florida• The 52km long Aconcagua railway

tunnel project linking Chile and

Argentina• The Kuwait Metro

• São Paolo’s Metro Line 4 in Brazil

• The São Paolo Ring Road in Brazil

Projects were nominated for inclusion

in one of 10 categories, with 10 making it

to the final list in each category. Tunnelling

projects were strongly represented in the

Urban Mobility section (6 of the total of

10) and the Global Connectivity section (3

of 10), with the Thames Tideway project,

which involves excavation of a 30km tunnel

70m under the River Thames in London,

UK, making it onto the list in the Water

category, and the Singapore Deep Tunnel

Sewerage project making it onto the list

in the Recycling and Waste Management

Section. David O’Brien, leader of KPMG’s

Global Center of Excellence for Cities,

said: “There is clear and ample evidence

that the world is beginning to innovate

and bring new solutions to respond to

the simmering challenges of urbanisation

and environmental sustainability. Looking

around the world of urban infrastructure,

it is not difficult to find examples of city

planners, developers, engineers, investors

and policymakers who are re-examining

and re-inventing the way infrastructure is

delivered.” Labelling the Top 100 as “triumphs

of humanity”, O’Brien added: “These

projects should provide inspiration to urban

infrastructure participants that change is

not only possible but achievable. We hope

that the projects highlighted help solidify

a new vision for the future and catalyse a

fundamental change in the way we interact

with the urban environment.”

Tunnelling projects included in the top

100 are:

More than one in ten global infrastructure projects included in a newly released list of

the top-100, judged on scale, feasibility, complexity, innovation and impact on society,

involve major tunnelling. Peter Kenyon takes a closer look at engineering and finance

consultancy KPMG’s major new Infrastructure 100: World Cities report, released at the

launch event of the World Cities Summit in Singapore on Tuesday (July 3, 2012).

Tunnels lead the wayin world top-100 projects

KMPG World Cities report


Table 1. Global projects with significant tunnelling elements in the

KPMG Top-100

Project Region Estimated cost

(US$)

Bioceanico Aconcagua Corridor Argentina-Chile $3 billion

Fehmarnbelt Crossing (sea link) Denmark-Germany $6.9 billion

California high speed rail USA $68 billion

East Side Access railway USA $8.2 billion

Bosphorous Tunnel (sea link) Turkey $1.1 billion

São Paolo Metro line 4 Brazil

Kuwait Metro Kuwait $10 billion

Miami Port Tunnel (sea link) USA $0.6 billion

São Paolo Ring Road Brazil

Singapore Deep Tunnel Sewerage System Singapore $2.6 billion

Thames Tideway UK

52km trans-Andean base tunnel route Fehmarnbelt immersed tube sea link 5.4km undersea Eurasia Tunnel

alignment

In the mountainous terrain of central

Turkey, a Robbins hard rock heavyweight

is working through demanding

conditions. The 10m diameter double

shield set off in Spring 2012 following its

OFTA (Onsite First Time Assembly) to

excavate the 11.8km long headrace tunnel

for the Kargi Kizilirmak hydro project, one

of the country’s largest to date. Dedicated

crews working for the contractor Gülermak

of Turkey, the project owner Statkraft AS

of Norway, and for Robbins, are guiding

the machine through changeable geology

including mixed weak ophiolite with high

clay content and water inflows.

The massive hydroelectric project is in

the mountains, near the town of Osmancik,

in ground that is expected to comprise

volcanic-based rock with softer limestone

for the first 3km and giving way to harder

rock including marble for the rest of the

route. A segmental lining it to be installed

through the first 3km with the remainder of

the tunnel supported with ring beams, rock

bolts, and a final lining of shotcrete.

A highly adaptable machine has been

design, with the ability to install everything

from segments to conventional ground

support. Both the TBM and backup have

required adequate space to accommodate

shotcreting, rock drilling and segment

handling equipment.

As of August 2012, the TBM had

advanced more than 400m despite extreme

ground conditions including unexpected

fault zones and inflows of water and mud.

More than 150 people are employed

at the site, with Robbins field staff and

Gülermak personnel working together

to overcome the conditions. “We have

had some very impressive efforts by the

Gülermak and Robbins teams,” said

Glen Maynard, Robbins Field Service Site

Manager.

After boring the first 175m with a

temporary conveyor system, tunneling was

interrupted to install the permanent muck

haulage conveyor. Gülermak completed

this installation in six days and on day

seven normal boring operations resumed

with the Robbins continuous conveyor

system in operation. Maynard added that

early TBM advance rates were promising,

with day shifts topping 15m and 20m

becoming a regular occurrence.

The Kargi Kizilirmak hydroelectric project,

located in Corum Province about three

hours from Ankara, will source water from

the Kizilirmak River to generate up to 470

GWh annually. The project, for Norwegian

company Statkraft AS, is scheduled to go

online by the end of 2013. n

References• Dynamic Robbins TBM will adapt mid-bore

- TunnelTalk, February 2009

Double shield taking on tough work in Turkey

Desiree Willis, Technical Writer, The Robbins Company

Robbins double shield ready

for tough drive in Turkey

From left: Team work will pull through the worst of the conditions; All good to go after OFTA at the mountain job site;

A Robbins continuous conveyor brings up the rear

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It is an Olympian tunnelling task and Sochi last week celebrated final breakthrough of its two large diameter TBMs on the

new road and rail routes into the mountains where the XXII 2014 Winter Olympics will be staged.

Providing smooth and quick transport to the sporting venues for athletes and spectators has required construction of a parallel road and rail link from Adler on Russia’s Black Sea coast near host city Sochi, to the Krasnaya Polyana resort in the mountains. The new 49km long route runs alongside and mostly on the left bank of the Mzymta River, with the road running through single tube bi-directional tunnels and rail services operating on both single and double tracks.

The new transportation links have required 32.3km of tunnelling, excavated using a variety of techniques and methods (Fig 1 and 2). Six tunnel groups are included on the route. These comprise:• six railway tunnels with total length

10,960m;• three road tunnels of a total

6,810m;• four service tunnels with a

combined total of 11,021m;• and a further 3,500m of auxiliary

underground openings for services in the tunnels “The longest tunnel group in the

line,” explained Tim Shulgin, Public Relations Manager for the project, “is Tunnel System 3. This comprises:

• the 3,169m long road tunnel, excavated using a 10.6m diameter Herrenknecht TBM;

• the parallel single track rail tunnel of 4,564m long, excavated by a 10m diameter SELI-Lovat double shield RM 394 TBM; and

• service tunnel No 2 at 3,197m long

and its associated service tunnel No 2-bis at 2,630m long.” On Wednesday last week (February

15, 2012), the contractor for the entire route, the SK Most group of companies, celebrated the completion of all excavation with the final breakthrough of the two large diameter TBMs for the Tunnel 3 complex.

A group of high powered visitors and special guests joined workers and company officials to watch the Herrenknecht machine and its parallel partner, the Lovat-SELI machine, emerge after long drives through, at times, difficult fractured and faulted geological conditions.

“This is a significant event in our years of effort towards providing top-class transportation for the many visitors and athletes to Sochi and the Krasnaya Polyana ski area,” said Anatoly Moroz, Chief Engineer of Bamtonnelstroy, the SK Most company responsible for construction of the project’s many tunnels.

A total six TBMs contributed to the excavations including a further three Lovat TBMs. These machines, at 5.9m, 4.3m, and 6.2m in diameter, worked on different lengths of the service tunnel headings. A second 13.2m diameter Herrenknecht machine completed road tunnel 5.

NATM work for the type A, C and D tunnels for main traffic and service tunnel headings were excavated using Alpine Miner AM-75 roadheaders. All TBM headings have precast concrete

Sochi winning on theOlympics alpine route


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Final excavation breakthrough by the last two TBMs on Tunnel System 3M

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The Swiss Challenge advantage was

available to MMC-Gamuda but it

was not required after all. The JV of

Malaysia’s two top construction companies

has won construction of the underground

section of Kuala Lumpur’s new metro line

on the strength of its competitive tender

submitted in January along with four

others. The JV proposal scored highest in both

its technical and commercial evaluation

and award of contract for the 9.5km

section of tunnelling and underground

works on the 51km long starter line of the

My Rapid Transit (MRT) metro system was

announced yesterday (Tuesday 20 March,

2012). Rival proposals were submitted from

the Hyundai (Korea)-Gadang-Chengal Jaya

JV; Taisei Corp (Japan); Sinohydro Group

(China); and the China Railway Group. Two

failed to score sufficiently on the technical

evaluation, leaving their commercial

proposal closed. Of the three commercial

bids considered, MMC-Gamuda’s tender

price of MYR8.2 billion (about US$2.65

billion) was some 3.4% lower than the

nearest of competing bids from Taisei and

China Railway Group.

MRT Corp, the project’s client

organisation, announced the award of

contract following the outcome of a One

Stop Procurement Committee meeting

chaired by Malaysia’s Prime Minister, YAB

Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Bin Tun Abdul Razak,

in Parliament on Monday this week (19

March 2012). In a statement, MRT Corp. confirmed

that the MMC-Gamuda JV was selected

“based on the consortium’s strengths in

design, construction plant and tunnelling

equipment, and tunnelling and station

construction methodology, especially

in the challenging karstic limestone

formation. It is also selected on the basis

of its construction plan and the resources

it committed.” The statement added that MMC-

Gamuda JV also stood out because of its

past experience in handling underground

works in the same ground conditions and

for putting together the same team that

handled its construction of the Stormwater

Management and Road Tunnel (SMART)

project in the mid-2000s. The consortium

also “offered the most competitive price”

to design and build the 9.5km of twin tube

running tunnel alignment and its seven

underground stations.”

In announcing award of the contract,

the CEO of MRT, Dato’ Azhar Abdul Hamid

said: “the tunnelling contract is the single

largest package of the MRT and accounts

for up to 40% of the project’s estimated

total cost of approximately MR50 billion

(about US$16 billion)”. MMC-Gamuda

held preferred contractor status for the

underground works construction contract

from the start. The Malaysian JV has the

necessary experience for the tunnelling

works involved and also retains financial

investment and job creation possibilities

within the country, which is something the

national Government is keen to promote.

The advantage was further endorsed when

the so-called Swiss Challenge method of

contract procurement was adopted. It gave

the national consortium the opportunity

to meet or better any more competitive

bid received. In the event the JV won the

central tunnelline contract outright, and did

not need to exercise the Swiss Challenge

right. As original promoter of the new metro

line, MMC-Gamuda JV is also appointed

by Government as the Project Delivery

Partner and chanrged with supervising

all sections of the line and its M&E and

rolling stock procurement, installation and

commissioning, except for civil construction

of the underground works. MMC-Gamuda,

as underground works contractor and

as PDP supervisor, will come into direct

contact during installation of the M&E

works through the underground sections.

Works for the underground package will be

supervised directly by MRT Corp.

Ian Thoms, recently of the Gautrain

project in Johannesburg, South Africa,

is head of the PDP organisation for

MMC-Gamuda and MRT Corp, under

the technical leadership of Marcus

Karakashian, recently of Singapore

MRT, will supervise the MMC-Gamuda

underground design-build construction

contract. Gus Klados, who managed

construction of the SMART tunnel for

MMC-Gamuda, is Head of Underground

MMC-Gamuda takesKuala Lumpur MRT tunnels


Kuala Lumpur’s MRT will run under the CBD from before the Mahameru Highway to beyond the Maluri Station

Full underground and elevated MRT

alignment

A PREVIEW OF THE TUNNELTALK 2012 ANNUAL REVIEW


Long TBM headings of more than 11km each, plus an additional 9km of NATM excavation, combine to form one of

the world’s longest tunnels. The 44.6km Pahang-Selangor raw water delivery tunnel in Malaysia is more than 50% complete (to mid-April 2012) and about 3% ahead of schedule towards the end goal of increasing water supply to the country’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur.

Work on the project started in mid-2009 when a ¥38 billion (about US$465 million) contract was awarded to a joint venture of Shimizu and Nishimatsu of Japan (30% each), with local partners UEMB and IJM (20% each), to excavate the long, 5m diameter tunnel through the mountains from Karak in Pahang State to Langat, near Kuala Lumpur, in Selangor State (Fig 1).

With the overburden of dense tropical jungle rising to more than 1,200m above the alignment, locations for access adits were limited. To progress excavation, and have the tunnel completed within the 60-month contract period, the JV elected to use three new High Performance 5.23m diameter main beam gripper TBMs from Robbins for the longest reaches beneath the highest overburden, and conventional NATM through sections of lower cover at the portals where geological conditions

were predicted to be less TBM favourable. “The longest heading is 23km with no

intermediate adit or access,” explained Deputy Project Manager of the JV, Yoshikuni Nakano, of Nishimatsu. “We have two TBMs working towards each other on this critical path element and breakthrough is currently estimated for about May 2013.”

TBM programmeThe long tunnel is divided into seven faces, three long TBM drives of 11.77km, 11.80km and 11.30km, from Adits 4, 3, and 2 respectively, plus four NATM headings, one in each direction from Adit 1 upstream, another from the inlet to Adit 1, and the fourth from the outlet portal to Adit 4 downstream (Fig 1).

When TunnelTalk visited the project in March (2012), the TBMs were about 6km, 4km and 4km each into their respective drives with TBM2 making best headway. Working from Adit 4 through softer, more fractured granite of about 120MPa UCS, rates of up to 40m/day, of two 12hr shifts per day with a maintenance schedule of as long as needed during the first shift per day, were being logged. Latest reports from the site confirm that this TBM has now passed the 7.2km mark, and is projected to be the first to complete its drive in about October 2012.

The other two TBMs were having a tougher time. TBM1, heading on a gentle down hill gradient of 1.9‰ from Adit 2, was at a standstill during the visit, held up by a fault zone of loose crumbling rock that was falling away to create a large void above the 5.2m diameter cutterhead.

“Crews are having to stabilise the zone with forward consolidation grouting,” explained Andy Birch of Robbins and Site Manager of a team of six Robbins Field Technicians engaged full time on the project by the JV - an electrician and a mechanic at each TBM site. “Once the area is secure, the TBM can advance into stable rock on the other side and be away again.”

This was not the first geological anomaly encountered, or the largest. “Not all the problem areas encountered have been fault zones exactly,” explained Frank Pittard, lead geologist with the construction JV. “Some have been areas of loose, closely-jointed rock with ground water and there have been fault zones with gouge. The most difficult section to date was in the TBM2 drive, about 1.5km from Adit 3, where one fault zone proved particularly extensive. More than 400m of difficult rock conditions were encountered. It included zones of gouge and hard rock and had also a large cavity that extended at least

Mountain drives forwater supply in Malaysia


Fig 1. Cross section of the long water delivery tunnel and its points of attack

Left: Three 5.2m diameter High Performance TBMs are completing the longest headings under the highest overburden; right: Drilling pre-excavation injection holes into a void fault zone

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As the world struggles to recover from the financial crisis of 2008-2009 and the resulting austerity measures and

public spending controls put in place by the governments of many Western economies, new international project finance figures show there may be signs of recovery.

Figures from financial services information provider Dealogic, which exclude real estate, shipping, aircraft and manufacturing projects, show that in 2011 global project finance volume grew 13.2% on 2010, to US$405 billion.

A record 945 projects reached financial close during 2011, 8% more than the 875 in 2010, and 33% more than the 712 in 2008.

India comfortably topped the country rankings with $87.7 billion worth of new project finance deals signed during the year, which means the world’s second most populous country now accounts for more than a fifth of the total value of new projects (Table 1).

Whichever way one looks at it, India is where the money for large scale projects is being spent, and it is the only region out of eight that has recorded project spending growth in each of the three years since the 2008 global economic crisis.

Regional rankingsIn just four years India has gone from the bottom of the league to the top: from $18.8 billion in 2008 to $88.2 billion last year. Asia project financing, excluding India, has remained quite static throughout the four-year period 2008-2011, while Latin America and Eastern Europe saw significant project spend increases during 2011, enough to return these regions to 2008 levels.

Project numbers on the North American continent have remained static at 114, but although financing levels are 28% up on the $31.2 billion low of 2009 (which at that time was North America’s lowest spend since 2005) growth in project finance on 2010 looks fairly static. In a separate country-by-country calculation the USA has slipped behind Australia for the first time, and into third place in a league which it once headed.

In Western Europe, with its sovereign debt crisis, although spending levels on major projects have remained static at $75 billion, and represent a significant improvement on the 2009 total of $54.3 billion, project financing is yet to recover to its 2008 peak of $83.5 billion, and the total number of projects is significantly down to 265.

This is in spite of the 330km high-speed rail extension between Bordeaux and Tours passing through the books in

June 2011. Valued at $9.15 billion this was the

world’s second biggest project financing deal of the year behind Qatar’s $9.8 billion Barzan Gas Project.

Looking forward, there is the prospect of the UK’s £32 billion High Speed 2 rail project linking London and Birmingham, which is programmed to start in 2017.

It is in the Middle East where the worst effects are being felt, a fact reflected well in engineering consultancy Halcrow’s balance sheet before it was acquired by CH2M Hill at the end of last year (2011).

But for Qatar’s Barzan Gas Project, which closed financing 18 days before

the year end and was the world’s biggest value project of last year at $9.8 billion the decline of the last few years would have been more marked.

A reversal is also expected for the region as a result of Qatar’s hosting of the Soccer World Cup in 2022. Next month (February 2012) delegates from some of the world’s largest infrastructure construction companies will gather in Qatar for a conference that will outline more than $106 billion of projects expected to be let between now and 2022. Of particular interest to the tunnelling industry is that some $65 billion of this will be spent on infrastructure projects

Examining the global project league table

Project finance deals closed in 2011 by region


Table 1: Project financing totals by region (2008-2011)

2011 US$bn

2010 US$bn

2009 US$bn

2008 US$bn

No. top 10 by value projects (2009-2011) **

India 88.2 (229)*

81.4 (163)

54.4 (81)

18.8 7

Western Europe 74.4 (247)

75.0 (315)

54.3 (265)

83.5 3

Asia (ex India) 51.7 (110)

48.4 (91)

49.6 (160)

47.5 6

Middle East/Africa 49.4 (70)

48.5 (47)

39.7 (63)

55.0 5

North America 47.3 (114)

42.9 (114)

31.2 (93)

36.9 1

Australia 39.6 (82)

19.4 (43)

18.8 (47)

21.2 1

Latin America 30.2 (55)

19.2 (52)

34.2 (67)

29.8 4

Eastern Europe 27.6 (36)

19.9 (27)

10.8 (16)

27.8 3

* Total projects financed per year

** Number of projects recorded in Dealogic’s world top 10 of largest financially closed projects for 2009-11

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Vertical shaft machine (VSM) technology is being used for the first time on a North American tunneling project. Ballard Siphon Project General Contractor James W. Fowler of Oregon has partnered with Herrenknecht to use the German manufacturer’s VSM technology to construct a 145ft x 30ft launch shaft on the south shore of Seattle’s Lake Washington ship canal. A 2.6m diameter Herenknecht EPBM, which is currently completing a short drive in England, is scheduled to launch on its 2,000ft drive in September.

The main parts of the VSM began arriving from Spain in February, with assembly beginning in the early part of March. Shaft excavation is expected to start next week, on or after April 16, with completion scheduled for June. Traditional construction methods, such as pile driving and ground freezing, would have taken 2-3 months longer.

Risk sharingThe Herrenknecht/ James W. Fowler JV was formed after a series of events occurred

whereby the General Contractor was unable to come to terms, on grounds of cost and schedule, with their original subcontractor to build a slurry wall. So instead James W. Fowler formed a JV with Herrenknecht to create a new shaft subcontractor, Fowler Shaft Contractors, and will use a VSM to install a caisson shaft. According to King County Project Representative Marty Noble, American reluctance to use the caisson method for shaft excavations over 80ft deep in areas like Seattle’s Puget Sound, which suffers

Left: Ballard siphon replacement alignment and right: King County Project Representative Marty Noble

US debut for vertical shaft machine technologyPeter Kenyon, TunnelTalk

Herrenknecht VSM at the south shore launch shaft

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The UK Government has given the go-ahead for the 250 miles/hour High Speed-2 project, at £32 billion

the country’s biggest ever infrastructure project.

Details of Phase 1 (London-Birmingham) published yesterday (January 10) reveal that 22.5 miles of the 140-mile route will be tunnelled. That is eight miles more of tunnelling than shown on the original route that the Government consulted on in July last year, and represents an attempt to pacify what is expected to be fierce local opposition along the length of the corridor.

The package of alterations announced by UK Transport Minister Justine Greening include a longer continuous tunnel from Little Missenden in Buckinghamshire all the way through to the M25. This section will now become a continuous 13.2km twin bore 8.7m diameter tunnel instead of two separate tunnels of 9.5km and 1.3km that on the initial alignment were separated by a 2.4km cutting through an area of natural beauty in the Chilterns.

The Government had delayed yesterday’s announcement from December last year while it tried to take in fierce objections, especially in the Chilterns. The Government conceded: “HS2 runs through 13 miles of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty but fresh mitigation measures announced today [January 10, 2012] mean that less than two miles will be at or above surface level.”

Other amendments that have been incorporated include:• A new 2.75 mile (4.4km) bored tunnel

along the Northolt corridor to avoid major works to the Chilterns Line and environmental impacts in the Ruislip area

• A longer tunnel past Chipping Warden and Aston Le Walls

• A longer tunnel to reduce impacts around Wendover, plus an extension to a tunnel at South Heath. HS2’s London terminus will be a rebuilt

Euston Station, and a new Birmingham City Centre station will be the finishing

point of Phase 1. A direct link to HS1 (which links the UK to the Channel Tunnel and Europe) will be provided via a tunnel from the all-new Old Oak Common Station to the existing HS1 line east of St Pancras Station line Trains not needing a direct non-stopping connection will HS1 will run on a separate Old Oak Common-St Pancras link.

Old Oak Common Station, being built as part of the separate £14.5 billion Crossrail scheme linking Maidenhead to the west of London and Abbey Wood to the east, via a new 116km line across and under central London, will provide HS2 with an interchange point with Crossrail. Heathrow Airport will not have a direct link during Phase 1 of HS2, but one will be built during Phase 2, according to the Government.

According to today’s announcement Phase 1 of HS2 will be completed by 2026. A second phase of construction, which will see the line split into a “Y” shape with two more high-speed lines linking Birmingham to Leeds and Birmingham to Manchester, is timetabled to be complete by 2033. A preferred alignment for Phase 2 will go out for public consultation in early 2014, with a final route being selected by the end of that year. Design consultant Arup planned the alignments for Phase 1, and HS2 Ltd, the company charged by the Government with delivering HS2, is currently carrying out detailed planning work for route options for Phase 2 - which includes stations in the East Midlands and South Yorkshire as well as a spur link to Heathrow Airport.

HS2 will see train times between London and Birmingham slashed from the current 84 minutes to just 45 minutes. The Government says the new link will increase rail capacity between the two cities by up to 26,000 seats per hour, and help relieve motorway congestion on the M1 and M6 as well as relieving pressure on current train services. The trains themselves will be 400m long, and accommodate up to 1,100 passengers.

Transport Minister Justine Greening

said: “This is not a decision I have taken lightly or without great consideration of the impact on those affected by the route.

I took more time to make this decision in order to find additional mitigation that now means that more than half the entire 140-mile line [Phase 1] will be out of sight in tunnels or cuttings. I am certain this strikes the right balance between the reasonable concerns of people living on or near the line, who will be offered generous compensation packages, and the need to keep Britain moving.”

A public consultation process on the controversial route ended in July last year (2011), and the Government now intends to take the final approval process of Phase 1 of the project (London-Birmingham) through Parliament by October 2013, with construction scheduled to start in 2017.

In November the Government started the process of finding a development partner for HS2 when it announced that four design consultants are on the shortlist for a £50-70 million management services contract to develop the scheme ready to take the approval process through Parliament. On that list are: Turner & Townsend, Mace, CH2M-Hill and Parsons Brinckerhoff.

The result of a £160-200 million civil engineering and structural design services contract, for which prequalifiers have already submitted proposals, is expected to be announced once the winning management services team has reported its environmental assessment findings. n

Extra tunnels seal UK high speed rail approval

HS2 Phase 1 gets go-ahead


LO-RES

High speed trains will be 400m long and carry 1,100 passengers


Expressions of interest are called for a single package of tunnelling and new track and station civil works in

Sydney for the estimated Aust$8.5 billion (US$8.9 billion) North West Rail Link (NWRL).

At the same time New South Wales Transport, owner of the NWRL project, has signalled its intent to build a second Sydney Harbour rail crossing into the central business district (CBD) to enable NWRL users to change trains at its southern terminus at Chatswood.

The new harbour crossing is Stage 4 of a newly-published Five Stages of Sydney's Rail Future plan announced by Transport for New South Wales. The NWRL is Stage 3.

The announcements by the New South Wales Government on Friday, 29 June, follows an industry briefing held three days earlier and attended by more than 320 delegates representing 170 companies.

Briefing documents circulated to those in attendance, and seen by TunnelTalk, show that the NWRL project, linking Cudgegong Road in the northwest suburbs, with Chatswood, will be completed as three separate contract packages: • A tunnelling and underground station

civil works (TSC) design-construct contract, for which expressions of

interest (EOI) are called• A surface and station civils (SSC)

design-construct contract, for which EOIs will be called in October following a separate industry briefing, and an

• Operations, trains and systems (OTS) PPP contract, for which industry briefings will begin later this month, with EOIs being called in late 2012. The full scope of the completed NWRL

includes laying 23km of new track between Cudgegong Road and Epping, 15.5km in tunnels and 8km in a mixture of at-grade and elevated track, plus the upgrade of 15km of existing line linking Epping with suburban Chatswood in north Sydney. From Chatswood passengers will be able to access the city and CBD areas by changing trains.

Closing date for submissions of EOIs for the tunnelling and underground station

civil works (TSC) contract is July 31, after which selected prequalified companies and consortia meeting the required experience, capability and skills criteria will be invited in October to deliver bids for a lump sum design-construct contract.

Contract award for this package is expected in the third quarter of next year (2013), with tunnelling commencing in 2014. Scope of the TSC package includes: • 15.5km of twin segmentally lined

running tunnels, predominantly by TBM but with some roadheader headings, to an i.d. of 6m, for a total excavation length of 31km

• Excavation of four underground stations between Bella Vista and Epping at Cherrybrook, Castle Hill, Hills Centre, and Norwest

• Mined caverns, niches and openings for crossovers and equipment

• Cross passages at 240m intervals• A concrete linning for all underground

infrastructure In total four TBMs are expected to

excavate the tunnels. "We are now beginning the tender

process for the multi-billion dollar construction contract to build the longest and deepest underground rail tunnels in Australia," said Gladys Berejiklian, the NSW Minister for Transport. "Major tunnelling

New harbour crossingin Sydney’s rail plan


38km NWRL connects northwest Sydney and Chatswood 38km NWRL connects northwest Sydney and Chatswood

Artist’s impression of new NWRL station

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It was a project visit with a difference when the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, travelled high into the mountains of Kazbegi to tour the site of the Stepantsminda hydropower project and travel underground to watch a Robbins TBM in action and take a turn at the operating controls. Components of the 5.3m diameter main beam TBM were trucked 160km from the Georgia capital Tbilisi up one-lane, sometimes unpaved mountain roads for Onsite First Time Assembly (OFTA) at the remote, snowy jobsite some 1,700m above sea level. The TBM was assembled in about 40 days with the personnel from Robbins and the Georgian contractor Peri LLC enduring winter temperatures that dipped to minus 40°C with the wind chill factor. “The assembly team could only work an hour and a half to two hours at a time at the site, and then we had to go

back into the shelter to warm up,” said Gene Lockhart, Robbins Special Projects Manager, who headed up the project team. A complete TBM operation supply contract by Robbins includes continuous conveyors, cutters, spare parts, field service, and project management. “We jointly worked with the Robbins field service team from the very beginning,” said Nana Gvazava of Peri LLC. “We relied on their experience and training of our staff on operation, assembly and maintenance.” After refurbishment of the machine components at the Robbins facility in Solon, USA and at the Peri workshops in Tbilisi, the assembled machine was ready for launch in February 2012. As of early May, the heading was more than 500m into the 5.5km headrace tunnel drive, working through slate, sandstone, and malm, and with the continuous conveyors operating at high availability.

The Stepantsminda hydro project, with support from the government-owned Georgian Energy Development Fund, Peri LLC, and Robbins, is part of a massive scheme to develop the country’s largely untapped hydropower reserves. The mountainous country has the potential to provide enough power for nearly 3 million homes per year. Only 25% of these resources have been developed. Once operational in 2016, the plant will draw water from the Tergi River near the Georgian-Russian border to operate the installed 68 MW capacity. Electricity from the plant will be sold within Georgia as well as to neighboring countries including Turkey. n

References• Onsite First Time Assembly (OFTA) at Sleemanabad - TunnelTalk, May 2011

Presidential TBM visitin Georgia

Desiree Willis, Technical Writer, The Robbins Company

From left: Onsite First Time Assembly of the 5.3m machine; The TBM is more than 500m into the drive; Georgia’s President

Saakashvili at the controls

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Two Herrenknecht TBMs are ready to begin their drives as the tunnelling work to upgrade London’s overloaded

sewerage system finally gets under way. Thames Water is carrying out £675

million of upgrades to five sewage treatment works as well as the £635 million excavation of the four mile (6.4km) Lee Tunnel as part of the Thames Tideway project.

Last week a 3m diameter Herrenknecht TBM was lowered into the 20m shaft at Beckton sewage treatment works ready to begin a 750m drive that will allow the transport of final effluent from the new extension to meet up with the existing effluent channel on the east side of the works. Excavation is expected to take two months. Works at Beckton are being carried out by Tamesis – a JV of Laing O’Rourke and IMTECH, with the tunnel shaft excavated by Joseph Gallagher Group.

Once this tunnel and the extension works are complete Beckton sewage works

will be able to treat 60% more sewage and fully treat increased flows during heavy rainfall rather than discharging them into the Thames.

Meanwhile excavation is about to start on the main 7m diameter Lee Tunnel that will connect the Beckton sewage works to London’s largest CSO at Abbey Mills Pumping Station in Stratford. Abbey Mills CSO currently accounts for 40% of the total discharge.

A spokesman said: “Both TBMs are now in their launch shafts at Beckton. We expect excavations on both tunnels to begin later this month.”

The Lee Tunnel is being bored by a closed-faced slurry TBM manufactured by Herrenknecht. It was lowered into the 70m launch shaft in December last year (2011) and is expected to advance at an average rate of 17m/day with tunnelling expected to be completed in late 2013.

The work is being carried out by MVB,

a joint venture of Morgan Sindall, VINCI Construction and Bachy Soletanche.

The final phase of the Thames Tideway is the proposed £4.1 billion Thames Tunnel, which will run 15.5 miles (30km) from east to west London connecting the 34 most polluting sewer overflows and transferring them to Abbey Mills Pumping Station and then on to Beckton Sewage Works via the Lee Tunnel.

The consultation phase for this project ends next week, and the Government has already confirmed it as one of a number of priority infrastructure projects, despite its projected cost now running at double initial estimates. n

References• Lee Tunnel shaft sinking progress -

TunnelTalk, October 2011• TBM commissioned to tackle London CSO

task - TunnelTalk, May 2011• Super sewer to revitalize River Thames -

TunnelTalk, March 2009

TBMs ready forLondon sewerage drives

Thames Water News Release

Fig 1. Lee Tunnel and proposed Thames Tunnel alignments

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In March 2011, the world’s longest rail tunnel ever undertaken prepared to recordits fi nal breakthrough deep beneath the mountains of the Swiss Alps. The fi nal

breakthrough to connect all headings of the fi rst tunnel into one long tubethrough the base of the Gotthard Massive was recorded in October 2010.

Making history at GotthardTunnelTalk reporting

History was made on Friday 15 October 2010 when the fi rst Bodio-Faido TBM broke

through into the drill+blast heading from Sedrun to fi nish 57km of rail tunnel through the base of the Swiss Alps from Erstfeld in the north and Bodio in the south.

Swiss politicians and dignitaries, project directors and contract managers as well as senior managers of the leading suppliers and the workers themselves all gathered for an offi cial breakthrough on Friday afternoon when the TBM fi red up at 2pm to cut the last 1.5m of rock and mark this truly monumental feat of civil engineering and endurance.

The crews of the TBMs and drill+blast headings blazed a trail. This last breakthrough occurred

Celebration of an epic achievement

nearly 2,000m below the top of the Alps and more than 8km from the nearest exit through the 800m deep shaft at Sedrun, and more than 13km from the access adit at Faido.

On a project of this magnitude - the longest, largest, most ambitious and most technically demanding tunnelling project of this age - there have been serious set backs and delays as crews have tunnelled into the unknown. Extreme geological conditions buried a TBM heading from the Amsteg adit for more than six months and had another TBM from the Faido adit at a standstill for fi ve months from March to July 2010.

These and other challenges, some not related to the excavation work, have caused a slip of some M

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The numbers are in and the tunnel has it by a nose! As large as the numbers are for the scope of the

project, a cable-stayed bridge across the Fehmarnbelt for a fi xed connection between Denmark and Germany comes in at DKK 38.5 billion (about US$7 billion or E5 billion) while the estimate for an immersed tube across the 20km strait is just slightly less at DKK 37.9 billion.

After agreeing the fi xed link concept in September 2008, two teams in the Danish owner organisation, Femern A/S, developed conceptual designs and cost estimates for a four-lane highway and two-track railway connection across the sea on a cable-stayed bridge and in an immersed tube tunnel. Of these, the bridge had been considered the less expensive option through the process and therefore the favoured plan. Announcement of the cost estimates in November 2010 produced a surprise result with the immersed tube revealing a lower estimate than the bridge.

The result illustrates the tremendous work achieved by the tunnel team in exploring new concepts to reduce the

cost of building, operating and maintaining an undersea link. Changing attitudes and new techniques for reducing polluting substances into the atmosphere also played a role in the outcome.

One of the most signifi cant cost savings was elimination of an intermediate man-made island designed to accommodate a ventilation shaft and equipment installation. Projections of low traffi c volumes in the initial years, together with signifi cant and rapid technical advances in reducing toxic emissions by road vehicles, have allowed the adoption of longitudinal ventilation in the long four-lane traffi c tunnel. Instead of large ventilation buildings and the intermediate vent station island, fans will be installed in ceiling recesses at 400m intervals along the 20km link. This also optimizes the design of the tunnel’s cross section eliminating the need for separate transverse or semi-transverse ventilation ducts. “The change reduces the volume of concrete in the immersed tube elements by some 10%, which is a signifi cant saving on a project of this scale,” said Steen Lykke, Project Director Tunnel for Femern A/S.

Since release of the cost comparisons in November 2010, Danish politicians have adopted the immersed tunnel as the preferred option. “The decision means that Femern A/S has reached an important milestone,” said Leo Larsen, CEO, Femern A/S. “As our conceptual design projects are based on a thorough technical foundation, we can now focus on ensuring that the authorities approve the project, including from an environmental perspective.”

Making the caseFewer risks, all told, in both the construction and operational phases than a cable-stayed bridge is how leaders of the project say they arrived at recommending the immersed tunnel.

A cable-stayed bridge across the Fehmarnbelt, with two free spans of 724m each, would be the largest spans ever constructed for either road or rail traffi c. Compounded by the high shipping traffi c in the area, this would pose signifi cant risks in the construction phase in terms of cost overruns, delays and industrial accidents.

Contrary to expectation, an immersed tube across the 20km Fehmarnbelt between Denmark and Germany has come in a whisker less than a cable-stayed bridge.

Technical risks, long term environmental impacts, navigational safety and developments toward more carbon effi cient transportation played a large part in reducing the

estimated cost of the undersea alternative and elevated it to the preferred solution.

Tunnel beats bridge forFehmarnbelt Fixed Link

TunnelTalk reporting

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Immersed tube tunnel (left) comes in slightly less costly and considered less risky over all than the cable-stayed bridge alternative (right)


First tube through at last!

Ground freezing applied to manage the Mölleback

On June 8, 2010, the Hallandsås project celebrated a mini-breakthrough of major signifi cance. A

mid-tunnel breakthrough completed a north-south connection through the mountain. Not a full TBM diameter breakthrough but connection with a pilot heading that marks safe passage through the most complex and risk-fi lled zone of the alignment.

Measuring 250-300m, the Mölleback Zone (MBZ) of the 8.6km long tunnel is a tectonically faulted zone of highly variable and altered rock with a high ground water content. “The zone is made up of thin layers of different types of weathered rock and soils all lifted vertically,” explained Dr Robert Sturk, Technical Manager for the Skanska-Vinci HB construction joint venture. “A high water table in the 130-140m of cover produces water pressures of about 11-13 bar at the tunnel horizon.”

The 10.6m o.d. Herrenknecht TBM being used to tackle this attempt to conquer the Hallandsås challenge is designed to withstand 15 bar in the static mode, 8 bar in continuous dynamic mode, and 13 bar for short stretches of a few meters in dynamic mode. “Almost 95% of the tunnel is in hard abrasive rock but it is highly fractured and the high water content results in high volume water ingress at high pressure,” said Sturk. “We used the machine in the closed slurry mode for a time at the beginning but the wear on the cutterhead and the demand on the systems was very high, so we have instead progressed mostly in the open mode

with extensive pre-grouting to control the water. The Herrenknecht TBM is fi tted with the ability for extensive grouting ahead of the tunnel face to provide a treated zone into which an advance of fi ve to ten 2.2m wide rings of precast lining can progress before the grouting cycle starts again.”

This method has served TBM progress

well through the 5km it has advanced from its start at the south end of the tunnel, but it was not considered capable of controlling the water content in the essentially fl owing materials of the MBZ. Here the more effective pretreatment of ground freezing, installed horizontally from a pilot tunnel, was adopted.

A full diameter rail tunnel now pierces the Hallandsås ridge in Sweden. On Wednesday

August 25, 2010, the one 10.6m diameter Herrenknecht TBM working on the twin tube railway tunnel broke through into a 1.5km reach of drill+blast excavation completed under a previous contract.

The breakthrough closes out nearly four and a half years of continuous round-the-clock work to complete the 5km segmentally-lined, TBM tunnel between 1.5km and 2km of drill+blast work from the north and south portals respectively. The TBM will now be dismantled and withdrawn from its in-tunnel breakthrough, and returned to the face of the south portal drill+blast heading to repeat the process for the parallel tube.

“This is a great day for everyone working on the project and a major step towards eliminating the greatest bottleneck on the West Coast Line,” said Per Rydberg, Project Director at the Swedish Transport Administration on the occasion of the celebrations.

The twin tube, double track rail tunnel has been under construction since the early 1990s and has overcome serious geological, political, technical and environmental setbacks.

Controlling ground water and working through exceptionally diffi cult geological and logistical conditions has charted construction of the Hallandsås project. Work started back in the early 1990s when an open hard rock machine was procured and assembled but abandoned after only some 10m as being unsuitable for the job. In 1996 a new contract was awarded to Skanska for a drill+blast operation on four headings. This advanced for about 1.5km from the north portals and about 2km from the south before it too was terminated over an environmental issue. The toxic catalyst of a two-part chemical grout being used to control water ingress ran freely from the tunnel heading and contaminated local water ways, poisoning wildlife and cattle drinking from the rivers and creeks.

All work was suspended and a remediation contract was then let for the years 1998-2000 to line the drill+blast lengths of tunnel and hold all secure while the client, the Swedish National Railways, and the Government decided the fate of the project. In 2003 it was decided to let another contract, which Sweden’s international construction company Skanska together with French company Vinci Grand Projects won

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for a new TBM attempt, this time using a closed pressurized system with a precast concrete segmental lining.

The 10.6m o.d. Herrenknecht TBM stated from the end of the drill+blast heading at the south portal in early 2006 and has worked pretty much 24 hours/day, 7 days/week since then to connect the 1.5km of drill+blast tunnel from the north portal in August.

Even operation of the Herrenknecht TBM procured for this successful attempt as one of the most geotechnically diffi cult projects of all time, has had to undergo changes. Designed to operate as a slurry Mixshield and withstand hydrostatic pressures of up to 15 bar, the method was changed to open mode TBM excavation with extensive pre-excavation grouting to control the high volume, high pressure ground water conditions.

Through the 250-300m long Mölleback Zone (MBZ) neither technique was considered capable of success and instead the entire zone was pre-supported with ground freezing. The machine intersected the freeze zone in mid-May 2010 and it took 14 days to drive through the frozen zone, cutting through the glass-fi bre feeze pipes as it advanced. For the last 600m, the 10.8m diameter TBM excavated the collar of rock that surrounds the central pilot heading, breaking through into the completed drill+blast heading.

Completing the Hallandsås rail tunnel, no matter its technical challenges and fi nancial costs, is vital to the operation of rail services in Sweden. The country’s important West Coast Line is currently 85% double track. The sharp curves on the single track over the Hallandsås ridge

constitutes a serious bottleneck. When the double track through Hallandsås is completed, a doubling of rail freight tonnage will be possible, and the number of trains per day can increase from the current number of four to 24 per hour. A double track railway is said to correspond to a 16-lane highway in capacity.

The fi rst trains are expected to pass through Hallandsåsen in 2015. “We have a well-functioning method and have gained valuable experience that we bring with us for completing the twin TBM drive,” said Anders Rehnström, Project Director for the project’s construction joint venture Skanska-Vinci.

The fi rst TBM hole through is achieved ahead of the anticipated mid-September 2010 date and the second drive can be expected to come in earlier than programmed. The worst of the unknown is now largely behind them. n

After years and many attempts of battling extreme geological

conditions, efforts on the famed Hallandsås project are winning. In June 2010, the Herrenknecht TBM

connected with the Mölleback Zone pilot tunnel and achieved full

diameter breakthrough in August.

Hallandsås celebrates fi rst tunnel fi nish


The various phases of installing the freezing through the MBZ started in January 2006 (Fig 1). By the time the TBM arrived, a collar of frozen ground about 4-6m thick around the 8m diameter circle of freeze pipes was in place. The freezing circuit was discontinued in mid-May and it took 14 days, working around the clock, to get through the zone and achieve breakthrough with the pilot heading.

“This was a truly signifi cant achievement,” said Sturk. “We now have about 600m to go to break through completely in about mid-September.”

Only one TBM could be used on the twin tube project. Tight restrictions imposed on the project by the Swedish Government’s environmental protection agencies to control ground water fl ows from the headings limited excavation to only one tube at a time.

Knowing the risks of the MBZ ahead of them, the construction team decided to drive an in-line pilot heading of about 600m from the face of the north portal drill+blast headings to the start of the MBZ and from there install the 100m of full-circle ground freezing. With the ring of freeze pipes set at an 8m diameter profi le within the 10.6m o.d. profi le of the TBM, a new system of glass-fi bre freeze pipes was developed by the joint venture and specialist Austrian drilling company Insond so that the TBM could grind through these as it progressed.

“Getting through this MBZ zone was one of the high risk elements on the

project,” confi ded Dr Terry Mellors, adviser and monitor of the project for its insurers. “To have come through successfully is a benchmark achievement technologically, and an outstanding milestone for the project.”

Driving through the frozen zone was said to have been highly successful according to Sturk. “Of course there was still considerable risk involved - the effectiveness of a freeze can never be guaranteed - but it proved to be very secure. There were no incidences of serious concern. We will now repeat, basically, the whole routine to complete the second tube.”

Hallandsås is among the benchmark projects in the development of TBM

technology to work under high ground water content and high ground water pressures. The Herrenknecht machines designed for the Arrowhead project in California began this cycle of development and the Herrenknecht system procured for the Lake Mead water intake tunnel project in Nevada is the next in the evolution of the technology. n

References• Arrowhead: Clawing success from the

extreme - TunnelTalk, Dec 2007• Final breakthrough for Arrowhead -

TunnelTalk, Aug 2008• Lake Mead TBM designed for the extreme

- TunnelTalk, Nov 2009

Surrounded by frozen ground in the pilot tunnel

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