Next November 19th, the International
Tunnelling and Underground Space Association will organise the edition 2015 of
the “ITA Tunnelling Awards” in a unique underground location: the Hagerbach
underground test facility in Switzerland. In the perspective of the Award
Ceremony organized on the D Day, 32 projects have recently been preselected.
Three of them have notably been nominated in the category “Major Tunnelling
Project of the Year”, related to large-scale tunnelling and underground space
projects requiring an investment of over 500 million euros. And the nominees
are… the Eurasia Tunnel, the New York City’s Second Avenue Subway, and the
Futian Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway. Focus on
these three ambitious projects.
The Eurasian
Tunnel, the 1st highway tunnel joining Asia and Europe by using a mechanized
tunnel boring machine (TBM)
The 14.6 km Eurasian Tunnel, on the
Kazlıçeşme-Göztepe route, will connect by 2016, the Asian and European lands
through a highway tunnel going under the seabed of Istanbul Bosphorus Strait.
Its existence will considerably reduce times of travels between the Asian and
the European sides, from 100 minutes to 15 minutes. With the thinning of the
traffic and the rearrangement of access roads permitted by the tunnel, this
flagship project is strategic for the city of Istanbul, which prepares itself
to host major international organizations.
KEY PIECES OF INFORMATION :
• Inner
tunnel diameter : 12m
• TBM
diameter : 13.7m
• Total
tunnel length : 14.6 km
• First
5.4 km section : a two-storey tunnel
• Main
part of the project: the 3.34 km long subsea tunnel under the Bosphorus.
• Second
5.8 km section : a road expansion, improvement works
• Total
cost : 1,24 billion dollars
• Contracting
authority: the Turkish Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and
Communication, and the General directorate of Infrastructure
Technically speaking, it will be the
first undersea tunnel linking Asia and Europe constructed thanks to a
mechanized tunnel boring machine (TBM). The latter is endowed with an outer
diameter of 13.7 meters, in order to excavate a 3.34 kilometre subsea tunnel
under the Bosphorus. Owing to the scope of the tunnel and demanding ground
conditions (full face rock sections, a long central stretch of difficult mixed
face and soft ground stratum along the tunnel line, and an 11-bar anticipated
face pressure), the works require a highly specialized TBM. Specifically
designed seismic joints that can resist to a 12 bar pressure, were also
installed at the transition areas, between rock and soft soils. Ultra-high
performance concretes with compressive strength of 80 MPa were produced; they
can actually resist under extreme subsea conditions for up to 120 years. At
last, the water/cement ratio was reduced to 0.34 in order to conceive
impermeable concrete. Such strategy permits to avoid the use of corrosion
inhibitors in the project, which generate a substantial economy.
New York City’s
Second Avenue Subway Project
Initiated 8 years ago and operational
by 2016, the New York City Second Avenue Subway is the largest US transit
project so far. It consisted in constructing a new subway line to expand the
metropolitan subway network, for the lines 4, 5 and 6 that are currently the
only ones serving the Upper East Side. With an expected ridership of over
200,000 weekday riders, it will contain overcrowding and delays on the existing
parallel line, improving travel within the City centre as well as in the
suburban commuters, and upgrading access to mass transit for residents of the
East Side of
Manhattan.
This underground construction is one
of the world’s most complex and challenging projects, including large
excavation spans, low rock cover (only 1/3 of a standard cavern span), variable
geotechnical conditions, large and complex intersections, and underground
obstructions. Owing to its dense urban environment (one of the highest
concentration of utilities, skyscrapers, and traffic in the world), the project
is deemed a reference in North America, notably for its innovative engineering
solutions. Indeed, several challenges in the construction structure were
addressed thanks to unprecedented innovations. Large and shallow station
caverns including optimized excavation sequencing and support system, drilling
and blasting in close proximity to multiple tall building foundations,
vibration and dust control approaches, underpinning an occupied 30-storey
luxury high-rise building, or building two highly sophisticated muck houses for
each station’s excavation to minimize environmental impacts. A unique example
of inter-disciplinary coordination (tunnelling and underground experts,
architects, electricians, mechanical engineers…), the project recently received
the Green Building Design Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
KEY PIECES OF INFORMATION :
• Cavern
diameter : 22m
• Cavern
Length : 400m
• Nature
of the works: excavation and lining of TBM-bored tunnels, mined stations
caverns, cut-and-cover stations, architectural fit outs, Trackwork, mechanical
and electrical systems.
• Construction
duration : 8 years
• Deadline
: 2016
• Total
cost : 4.5 billion dollars
• Client’s
name: New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority Capital Construction.
The Futian
Station of Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway and the urban
high-speed train
The Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong
High-Speed Railway is a part of the Beijing-Hong Kong High Speed Railway,
planned to connect mainland China and Hong Kong. It aims at developing transit
from Guangzhou South Station to Kowloon West, Hong Kong, notably going through
the Shenzhen North Station and the Futian Station, which was to be constructed.
This 11.4 km long project was also structured around the Yitian Road Tunnel,
located between the Shenzhen North Railway Station and the Futian Station.
Amounting 933 million dollars, the achievement of the project has considerably
reduced the travel time from Guangzhou to Hong Kong. The works began in 2008
and came to an end on June 2015.
Essentially visited by high-end
business passengers, the Futian Station is now the first underground railway
station in China and the largest one in Asia. More than 1,000 meter long, 32
meter deep and almost 80 meter wide, it is designed to receive the fastest
train in the world (200 km/h driving speed).
A three-layer underground station, it
is structured around 8 lines and 4 platforms, and integrates junctions with
urban rail networks, buses, and taxi transport systems. The station is located
in the centre of the district of Futian, in Shenzhen, neighbouring skyscrapers
and heavy traffic roads. During the 7 year works, engineers were confronted to
dense underground pipelines and complex geological and hydrogeological
conditions, from massive engineering scale and earthwork to the excavation of
foundation pits reaching 1,830,000m3. The Station integrates the open-cut
bottom-up and the cover-and-cut top-down methods, in order to reduce the
distortion of foundation pits and soil mass and to protect the safety of Fukuda
Station and its surrounding buildings. Such technics have set a precedent
regarding the structure construction of a large underground station at the
urban centre.
KEY PIECES OF INFORMATION :
• Total
length of the works :
11.4 km
• Futian
Station:
- 1
km long, 32m deep, 78m wide.
- A
3-layer underground structure.
• Yitian
Tunnel : 6.2 km long
• Duration
of the works : 7 years (from 2008 to June 2015)
• Total
cost : 933 million dollars (RMB 5.916 billion)
• Client’s
name: Guangzhou Shenzhen Hong Kong Passenger dedicated line limited liability
company
In addition to the 7 categories of
projects, the ITA Awards 2015 have created 4 other categories: the Young
Tunnellers of the Year, whose names were also disclosed last month, as well as
the Contractors of the Year and the Engineering of the Year. An Award will also
be given for Lifetime achievement. In total, ITA has shortlisted 42 entries in
the framework of 11 prize categories, described in the following page.
Major Tunnelling Project of the Year
(more than 500 million €)
Eurasia Tunnel Project – Turkey
Futian Station of Guangzhou – Shenzhen
– Hong Kong – China
New York City’s Second Avenue Subway
Project – USA
Tunnelling Project of the Year (from
50 to 500 million euros)
1st Phase of Low and Intermediate
Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility Construction – South Korea
Indianapolis Deep Rock Conveyance and
Storage Tunnel Project - USA
Lake Mead intake N°3 – USA
Outstanding project of the year (up to
50 million euros)
Grosvenor Decline Tunnels - Australia
Norsbork Metro Depot – Sweden
North Strathfield Rail Underpass –
Australia
Technical innovation of the year
An Innovative Vehicle – mounted GPR
Technique for Fast and Efficient Monitoring of Tunnel Lining Structure
Conditions
Combination of techniques for immersed
tunnel
Development of the New Joint (SB
Joint) for Shield Tunnels
Monitoring tunnelling induced ground
displacements using distributed fibre optic sensing
New innovative system for layer
thickness control on spray mobiles
The evolution of the “Nazzano” method
to widen tunnel without interrupting traffic flow
Environmental Initiative of the Year
Brenner Base Tunnel / Isarco
Undercrossing Lot – Italy
Innovative Overhead Conveyor Belt for
Urban Environmental Benefit – Qatar
The Corribtunnel Project – tunnelling
in environmentally sensitive area – Ireland
Safety Initiative of the Year
MineARC Systems Compressed Air
Management Solution
Safety cabin of tunnelling drill
Semi-Automatic Tubular Steel Arch : an
innovation on safety
Innovative use of underground space
Reviving burial in tunnel – Israel
Sydney Opera House Vehicle Access and
Pedestrian Safety (VAPS) project - Australia
Toledo Metro Station on Line 1 in
Naples – Italy
Young Tunneller of the year
Philip Duarte
Petros Fortsakis
Jurij Karlovsek
Liu Hao
Sindre Log
Ryan McCarron
Eloi Angelo Palma Filho
Ponciano Perez Lupi
Contractor of the Year
Bouygues (France)
China Railway Tunnel Group (China)
Kiewit (United States of America)
Salini-Impregilo (Italy)
Skanska (Sweden)
Engineering of the Year
CH2M (United States of America)
China Railway Siyuan Survey and Design
(China)
Japan Railway Construction, Transport
and Technology Agency (Japan)
Mott McDonald (United Kingdom)
Parsons Brinckerhoff-WSP (United
States of America)
Lifetime Achievement
All of them will be presented during
the one-day conference organized on Thursday, November 19th, 2015. The Prize
awards ceremony will take place during a banquet on the D day. To attend to the
one-day Conference and participate in the Banquet, register on the following
website: https://awards.ita-aites.org/book-conference-and-dinner.html
About the International Tunnelling and
Underground Space Association:
The International Tunnelling and
Underground Space Association (ITA) is a non -profit and non-governmental
international organization, which aims at promoting the use of underground
space as a solution to sustainable development. Founded in 1974 and operating
out of Lausanne, Switzerland, ITA currently
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