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At least half a dozen tunnel projects of world significance were underway or starting in Europe this year, including world record length road tunnels in Norway, the giant peripheral metro [...]

Scandinavia is a major focus for tunnels this year as the Stockholm bypass accelerates and TBMs (tunnel boring machines) for Oslo's 20km long high-speed rail link push forwards. But there [...]

Europe set the tunnelling pace this summer as first high speed trains ran through the 57km long AlpTransit Gotthard base tunnel, in Switzerland, the world's longest transport tunnel, and the [...]

A 9.96M DIAMETER hard rock TBM began grinding its way out of its big assembly chamber south of Oslo in September heading northwards to the capital. Next month its partner [...]

The increasing clutter of cables and pipes in modern streets makes the detection and location of existing services a crucial step before installation of new lines or repair. Both safety [...]

Damage and leakage in pipes is unavoidable as they age. Physical movement, chemical changes, erosion, ground displacements and seemingly unstoppable penetrative tree roots can all cause minor or major disruptions. [...]

The market for vacuum and suction excavators has been growing rapidly in the last few years as their advantages have been increasingly appreciated for both safety and cost reasons. Their [...]

Microtunnelling remains widely used for medium and large gravity lines needing accurate placement. New developments include the direct pipe system using pipe-pulling to replace jacking methods Microtunnelling, the use of [...]

While flurries of protest can surround hilltop windfarms in the British countryside, the North Sea offshore industry has been growing by leaps and bounds. Projects are getting bigger, both In [...]

IN OCTOBER this year, Switzerland's BLS rail company head of installations and projects Daniel Pixley took on a new task; upgrading the Lotsehberg base tunnel at the centre of his [...]

Completion of running tunnels for London's huge Crossrail scheme was a major highlight this year, as the last of eight Herrenknecht TBMs (tunnel boring machines) broke through in May, meaning [...]

For the first time in three decades Norway is using a TBM for one of its long tunnel projects, the Ulriken near Bergen. The drive is just beginning reports Adrian [...]

IN MID-OCTOBER the Austrian contractor Porr, part of the Atcost 21 joint venture with Hinteregger ft Sohne, Ostu Stettin and Swietelsky, will stop the TBM drive on first bore of [...]

LOTSCHBERG The first European base tunnel and the only one in operation is the 34.6km long Swiss Lotschberg, from Frutigen south to Rarons at a depth up to 2000m. Like [...]

A NEW TUNNEL crossing of the Thames River, proposed for the Greenwich peninsula in London, will go to public consultation later this year, prior to seeking a development consent order [...]

CONSTRUCTION MOMENTUM of the Brenner Base Tunnel in Austria and Italy is now reaching full speed. Nearly all the preparation, access and exploratory works for the project are either completed [...]

IT HAS been tough going for the long hard rock drives on the central contract for the Koralm high speed rail tunnel in Austria. Blocky unstable rock conditions have slowed [...]

Trench support systems, struts and boxes are now widely used, mostly on a hire basis, for excavations for pipe laying and other works. Changes in the market see more and [...]

Despite economic woes, tunnels for rail and roads, hydro power and metros are all under construction in Europe with schemes becoming ever larger and more ambitious. Norway, despite a relatively [...]

For most large diameter pipe and joint repair work, the preferred method still seems to be the use of a mechanical seal of some kind, which is seen as a [...]

Pipe leakage is one of the major challenges for utilities of all kinds and presents all kinds of dangers and cost, from simple loss of supply and wastage, to potential [...]

Complex station works, and tunnel drives constrained by logistical and property issues are needed for the Blue Line metro extension in Thai capital Bangkok. Some of the stations are highly [...]

Drilled utility connections do not come much longer than a new 5km power cable link now being installed near to Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Admittedly the drilling is in two [...]

PIPEJACKING IS a useful technique for more than just service installation. On the new Blue Line metro extension in Bangkok it is being used for top down construction work, with [...]

THE NOW finished TBM drives for a new tunnel to access Miami's cruise liner and container port have been one of the world's more complex tunnel jobs in recent times, [...]

Europe's largest tunnelling project, the gigantic [pounds sterling]14.8 billion (€17.4 billion) Crossrail scheme in London, UK, reached its peak activity this year with some 10,000 workers busy on 42km of [...]

Few countries have as many mineral resources as Australia, and in such quantities, from coal and oil to iron, gold and nickel. Mining and other extraction is an increasingly large [...]

Since the Romans laid lead pipes for their water supply networks almost 2,000 years ago, the joining of these conveyance devices has been a key part of utilities work. However [...]

April saw the first breakthrough on the two drives for Brisbane's legacy tunnel, a new western city motorway link for its Transapex network. Adrian Greeman visited the project. TBMS WERE [...]

Ever higher speeds and multiple flows of items in storage are among the trends currently being seen in automated storage and retrieval systems for wholesale, retail and production warehousing. Both [...]

The severity of the economic downturn and imposition of austerity has taken its toll, but for some sectors of industry at least there is movement in the recent past. For [...]

Financial issues have overshadowed the engineering achievements and innovations for Brisbane's Airport Link tunnel in Australia. Technical journalist Adrian Greeman asks some of its engineers to recall their work STEADILY [...]

If you are going to put utilities in the ground then you need the materials to do the job and the most basic of those is the pipe itself, and [...]

Directional drilling and augur boring are the cost effective methods for pipes and small tunnels. But in difficult or mixed ground and for larger and longer projects the remote controlled [...]

Tunnelling is pressing ahead throughout Europe for metros, railway links and road crossings, by both tunnel boring machine (TBM) and conventional drilling - some on a significant scale, like London's [...]

Polish commuters are doubtless hoping the construction of the second metro line in the capital Warsaw is completed significantly faster than the first. Work on that lasted several decades, interrupted [...]

The three stations along the central underground section of the line, Rokin, Vijzelgracht and Ceintuurbaan, have all been a major challenge to construct, each within a huge underground box of [...]

In early planning for the North-South line is was thought that bored tunnel could continue the route into North Amsterdam, an outlying part of the city across the main river [...]

From the beginning it was supposed the most hazardous, contentious and difficult part of the North-South line. The underground tunnelling work through the old city centre of Amsterdam, a national [...]

Tunnelling attention in Europe this year has swung from the Alps, following completion of excavation on the world-beating 57km long Gotthard high speed rail tunnel, to the UK with a [...]

Completion will take place late this month of a long running project to tunnel underneath the 19th century central station in the Netherlands capital Amsterdam. The successful outcome will help [...]

If it were not for the Gotthard base tunnel, the Ceneri would have been attracting more attention as one of Switzerland and Europe's larger tunnel projects. But the 57km length [...]

THE RECENT BREAKTHROUGH OF THE Gotthard base tunnel in Switzerland dominates tunnelling news this year, as the 57 km long deep mountain tunnel is a world record for railway or [...]

Parts of an EPB tunnel machine will be arriving at Marseilles docks on the French Mediterranean coast in July for loading and transport to Egypt. From there they will be [...]

The 21st century has become the era of the base tunnel, boring at unprecedented depths through the giant mountain ranges. Seven are in progress all facing special challenges. THE OPENING [...]

The first water passed through the 8km-long San Francisco Bay Tunnel in October 2014, well ahead of an original 2015 schedule. The project also came in well under budget, Adrian [...]

For the all-terrain crane user the tasks they are required to do are usually time critical. Operations are often planned well ahead and delays can be disruptive for schedules and [...]

For two year,s serious construction work has been underway on the exploratory tunnels for the Brenner Pass high speed rail project in Austria. Like the world record length 57km Gotthard [...]

A pair of remote-controlled underwater jacking frames, an exceptionally deep level jack-up barge with pinpoint GPS aggregate placing , and a mini-submarine marine access vehicle, are among the innovative tools [...]

The ground in Belfast, Northern Ireland, is as troubled as the city's past history, if not more. Soft grey alluvial deposits named 'sleech' are up to 15m thick in the [...]