Influences of the Urban Environment on the Emme Tunnel
| Author(s): |
Philippe Menétrey
Markus Wyss |
|---|---|
| Medium: | conference paper |
| Language(s): | English |
| Conference: | IABSE Congress: Structural Engineering for Meeting Urban Transportation Challenges, Lucerne, Switzerland, 18-21 September 2000 |
| Published in: | Structural Engineering for Meeting Urban Transportation Challenges |
| Page(s): | 798-807 |
| DOI: | 10.2749/222137900796356062 |
| Abstract: | The 47 km long new railway line between Bern and Zérich is one of the main part of the project Rail 2000 developed by the Swiss Federal Railway Company. Near Kirchberg, this new railway line is crossing the Emme river, in addition the busiest highway of the country, local roads, an existing railway bridge, various public utilities and two towns. Due to the density of this urban environment and, as most of the crossed infrastructure has to remain in service during construction, a tunnel of 1628 m length in granular soil was planned.After defining all project parameters, general concepts were developed considering the environmental aspects. A major issue was the concept for waterproofness of the tunnel which is ensured by the concrete liner itself without membranes. Thus, retrofitting limited lifetime waterproofing will be avoided.The density of the environment asked for different construction methods. One section of the tunnel was built in standard cut-and-cover technique with a vault profile. With increasing depth of the construction pit, tunnel construction was executed between anchored sheet piling and in areas with groundwater level on top of an underwater-base concrete slab. The middle section of the tunnel was built using a top-down construction method with a rectangular tunnel cross-section. After the top slab was poured between slurry walls the previous terrain was re-established in order to minimise interference with the highway and the river. Soil excavation below the top slab was performed applying air overpressure to lower the groundwater level.The complexity of construction methods, construction staging, environmental, soil, and groundwater conditions required non-linear finite element simulations for estimation of interaction between tunnel and existing structures. The model which was used is briefly described and a comparison with field measurements is presented. |
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