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Gotthard Base Tunnel Sou...

Requirement

tunnelling project

Employment Railway
Geology Gneiss, granite, slate
Tunnel Length 48,384 m
Diameter 9,430 mm

Solution

machine data

  Machine Type Gripper TBM
Support Techniques Rock Support
Cutterhead Power 3,500 kW
Torque 8,500 kNm

In Switzerland a structure of the century is under construction: the Gotthard Base Tunnel. The longest traffic tunnel of the world will be 2 x 57 kilometers long and will turn the connection Basel-Milan into a flat rail link. After its completion, trains can go twice as fast as hitherto. Including all shafts and galleries, a total of 153,5 kilometers have to be excavated through a changeable and challenging geography – with an overburden of up to 2,000 meters and rock temperature up to 50° C. One of the most critical challenges was the Piora Basin situated on the southern section between Faido and Sedrun. For this fault zone, with a length of about 150 meters, the tunnel workers had to take into account to encounter non stable rock, possibly under high water pressure. For the mechanized tunnelling of the two main tubes under the St. Gotthard only Gripper TBMs made by Herrenknecht are operation and will excavate about 85 kilometers of the new railway tunnel.

The south: Bodio - Faido – Sedrun.

In autumn 2006 the successful completion of the southern section from Bodio to Faido was celebrated. The TBMs S-210 (“Sissi”) and S-211 (“Heidi”) entered the multifunction station at Faido on September 6, and October 26, 2006. Following the subsequent comprehensive revision, the diameter of both machines was increased from 8,830mm to 9,430mm in order to tackle the adjacent section towards north: from Faido to Sedrun. Both hard rock machines coped with the Piora Basin in October 2008 and February 2009 and are advancing at high tunnelling rates since then.
 

The north: Erstfeld - Amsteg - Sedrun.

The two Gripper TBMs S-229 (“Gabi 1”) and S-230 (“Gabi 2”) completed the section Amsteg – Sedrun in the north of the Gotthard massif in June and October 2006. They were dismantled inside the mountain and refurbished comprehensively. After that they were restarted at the Erstfeld portal, the nothernmost point of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, for the advance of the track Erstfeld – Amsteg. On June 16, 2009, a big celebration was held on the occasion of the breakthough of “Gabi 1” in Amsteg . The sister machine “Gabi 2” in the parallel tunnel finished very strong. On July 19, a top performance of 56 meters of new tunnel within 24 hours was achieved. Precisely 3 months after "Gabi 1" celebrated breakthrough on September 16, 2009.