The A 93 federal motorway is 270 km long and passes through Bavaria from Hof in the north to Kiefersfeldern on the border with Austria. The roughly 840 m long Pfaffenstein Tunnel in Regensburg is one...
The Rastatt Tunnel represents the core engineering structure in planning approval section 1.2 of the new/upgraded Karlsruhe–Basle rail route. It will be tackled from May 2016 using two hydro-shield TBMs. The two single-track, roughly 4270 m long tunnel tubes will be lined with 50 cm thick reinforced concrete segments. The shallow location of the tunnel with minimal overburdens of less than 4 m, the subsidence-prone infrastructure and the presence of buildings, quite apart from having to undertunnel the Federbach low-lying conservation area protected by a frozen cover, place high demands on the engineering and process technology. Undertunnelling the busy Rhine Valley Railway, secured in advance by a ring-shaped brine freezing zone represents a particularly sophisticated task.
The rail route between Hanau and Nantenbach is part of the 112 km long Main-Spessart Railway between Hanau and Würzburg. It passes through the Schwarzkopf Tunnel built in 1854 and in urgent need of repair. Rather than this renovation scheme, a new route between Laufach and Heigenbrücken was decided on to eliminate the Schwarzkopf Tunnel. This project entails a roughly 8 km long, twin-track upgraded route running from Hanau to Nantenbach.
The 5425 m long Bosruck Tunnel between the states of Upper Austria and Styria has been in operation since 1983, and traffic has been running through a new second bore since summer 2013. After thorough refurbishment of the original bore, the fully improved twin-bore tunnel was opened for traffic on 19 October 2015. The Austrian autobahn operator ASFINAG has invested 280 million euros in the upgrading and modernisation of the tunnel.
The first of two tunnel boring machines (TBMs) for the Rastatt Tunnel by manufacturer Herrenknecht was approved by the customer, the Tunnel Rastatt JV, on December 8, 2015 at the factory in Schwanau. The two mix-shields will each tackle a bore of the twin-tube tunnel completing them in carcass state. The rail tunnel is part of the new/upgraded Karlsruhe–Basle rail link.
The tunnel boring machine (TBM) driving the Filder Tunnel as part of the Stuttgart 21 infrastructure project has completed its first drive in the middle of November 2015. The Filder Tunnel (PfA 1.2) has a length of 9.5 km and links the main station of Stuttgart in the valley to the Filder Plain, which is about 155 m higher. Construction is executed by the ATCOST 21 consortium under the technical lead of Porr Bau GmbH.
Since early October 2015, the test operation phase in the Gotthard Base Tunnel has been in full swing. Numerous test runs have already been performed. Until May 31, 2016, around 5000 test runs are planned, with trains speeding at up to 275 kilometres per hour through the world’s longest rail tunnel.
Driving operations for the Crossrail tunnel sections with a total length of 42 km were successfully concluded in London in June 2015. Eight tunnel boring machines (TBMs) were used over a period of more than three years. Activities are now focused on furnishing the running tunnels and completing the stations. The report in tunnel issue 8/2015 provides an insight into the western TBM tunnel section (C300), building the Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road underground stations (C410) as well as Farringdon Station (C435). It follows on from the article published in tunnel issue 2/2013.
For the fourth time now, the European Rock Mechanics Symposium (Eurock) of the International Society for Rock Mechanics (ISFRM) was held in Salzburg. Eurock 2015 took place together with the 64th Geomechanics Colloquium of the Austrian Society for Geomechanics (ÖGG) from 7 to 10 October 2015.
After a number of tunnel fires with serious consequences around the turn of the millennium, the EU tunnel directive of 2004 and the German guidelines for the equipment and operation of road tunnels...
