The ITA Tunnelling
Awards 2017 – Highlight on “Major project of the year over €500m” category 4
finalists under the sign of transportation
Lausanne, October
2017.-
November 13-16 2017 will see leading international specialists in the global
tunnelling sector attend the AFTES Congress in Paris which will include a
special one-day event on November 15th.
This day will be dedicated to the
presentation of the finalists, followed by a banquet and the ITA Tunnelling
Awards ceremony.
Launched
in 2015 by the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
(ITA-AITES), the first two ITA Tunnelling Awards events attracted more than 450
attendees and 200 entries. Several months prior to this event, judges
scrutinise these applications to select a list of finalists for each of the
nine categories.
One
of these categories must be highlighted as it comprises mammoth projects with a
budget over €500m. The “Major project of the year” category must also be
highlighted this year, because all the finalists have developed transportation
projects in big cities.
• Tehran Metro (Iran) : a high speed
project
One immense project to be mentioned
is the extension of the Tehran Metro: from the south east of Tehran, the line
goes through the city center to end up in the North West of the city. Line 6 of
the Tehran Metro will be 31.2km long with 27 stations. This tunnel project is
one of the longest in Iran. Started in 2015, this “lightning-project” has ended
a mere 22 months later, in 2017, and a special record was established with 800m
of tunnel excavation completed within a week.
This
huge construction project required 35 access tunnels to build the “NATM” part
of the main tunnel and the volume of steel used in this project is 20x greater
than the steel used in the constructing the Eiffel Tower.
As
the line passes beneath city center, various instruments and processes were
used to decrease the risks arising from surface/subsurface obstacles (24-floor
building, bridges, other metro tunnels, aqueducts…): ground leveling points,
building settlements points, convergence pins, extensometers, inclinometers,
crack meters…
Cost:
€514.6m
• Qatar Rail Metro (Qatar) :
Tunnelling under sensitive structures
Tunnelling
beneath city centers, beneath buildings and especially specific structures has
emerged as an increasing concern in the tunnelling industry. The Qatar Rail
Metro is one good example of efficient management of mining under sensitive
structures.
The Doha Metro
includes the construction of twin bored tunnels and 31 stations.
Planned
to be operational in 2020, the elevated and at-grade rail network will be built
in 2 phases. The first phase are the Gold, Red and Green Lines with the second
phase including an additional Blue Line.
Not
only did the project see 20 TBMs burrow silently beneath the city without a
hint of disruption to the population, but the twin-bore single track tunnels
were constructed using EPB technology, in order to mitigate the risks related
to surface settlements, collapse, rapid water ingress through karstic features,
excavation under sensitive structures or below man-made sea water channels,
with the application of face pressure.
Cost:
€16.2bn
• Delhi Metro Phase 3 Expansion
Networks (India) : Safety first for “THE” mega project in India
“Safety
First!” was probably the leitmotiv of the metro phase 3 expansion project in
Delhi.
This
project is one of the most ambitious underground construction work for India as
it comprises of 106 km of tunneling with 34 stations having to cope with
numerous technical challenges such as unforeseen geological conditions, densely
populated areas…
For
5 years, and thanks to many safety initiatives, the accident occurrence rate
has been reduced which has led to a Lost Time Injury Frequency rate (LTIFR) of
less than 0.02 in Phase - III compared to 0.19 in Phase - II.
Internal
monitoring through site inspections and safety management initiatives such as
Safety Trainings, Weekly Site Safety Walk & Monthly Safety Review meetings,
were organized in
When
operational, the project will reduce vehicle greenhouse emissions to
approximately 3.1 million tons per year. Fuel consumption will be reduced to 141,353
thousand litres/ year.
Cost: €4.2bn
• Confederation LRT Line (Canada) : a
delicate excavation
The
Confederation Line is a state-of-the-art LRT system and Ottawa’s largest
transportation infrastructure project since the building of the Rideau Canal.
The
Confederation Line is a P3 project between the City of Ottawa and Rideau
Transit Group (RTG) funded by the Canada Federal Government and the Province of
Ontario. The tunnel spans 2.9 kilometers, is on average 15 meters below the
surface and features three stations on the Confederation Line project - Lyon,
Parliament and Rideau.
In
all, the project comprises thirteen stations and a 12.5-kilometre route, with
10 kilometers running above ground and 2.5 kilometers underground. Three
stations are located underground in the new downtown tunnel.
The
main excavation challenge for Lyon and Parliament stations was the close
proximity of the basements. The stations are 18m wide in between buildings, 20m
apart. The construction process foresaw an excavation by stages in order to transfer
the ground loads from the arch to the invert through the cavern support,
avoiding the loads into the basements.
Cost:
€1.4bn
• Details of the AFTES Congress
Organised by the French Association of Tunnels
and Underground Space, this international three-day event will attract
underground space sector specialists from around the world: experts,
architects, civil engineers and city planners will promote the underground as
the new frontier and generate ideas on how it can shape and enhance our future.
Key Dates of the
AFTES Congress:
November
13 – 15: an international exhibition (130 exhibitors) will take place at the
Palais des Congrès (Porte Maillot, Paris), including technical conferences and
jobsite visits organised around the central theme of 'Underground Space: our
wealth'.
November
16: a one-day conference dedicated to 'Building our Future' at La CIté de
l’Architecture (Trocadéro, Paris).
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 associates 73 member nations, 300 affiliated members, 17 prime
sponsors and 60 supporters.
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