Building of the world’s largest tunnel manufacturing unit has been accomplished as a part of the Fehmarnbelt Fastened Hyperlink street and rail tunnel between Denmark and Germany.
The manufacturing unit at Rødbyhavn on the Danish island of Lolland, the place the tunnel’s north portal will probably be, has an space of roughly 1Mm2 (together with the dry dock) and is the place the 89 precast concrete components for the 18km tunnel will probably be manufactured. As soon as full, it’s going to turn out to be the longest immersed tube tunnel on this planet, greater than 10km longer than the tunnelled part of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge which presently holds the title.
The manufacturing unit was aseembled by Femern Hyperlink Contractors (FLC) – a consortium that includes Vinci, Aarsleff, Wayss & Freytag, Max Bögl, CFE, Solétanche Bachy, Bam Infra, Bam Worldwide and Dredging Worldwide – which will probably be even be establishing the tunnel.
Of the 89 precast components to be produced within the manufacturing unit, there will probably be 79 normal components which might be 217m lengthy, 42m broad and weighing over 73,000t. There can even be 10 “particular components” positioned roughly each 2km which might be 39m lengthy, 47m broad, weigh 21,000t and have a basement beneath the street and rail floor.
The weather are created contained in the manufacturing unit by being forged onto massive casting moulds and strengthened by metal. FLC efficiently accomplished a trial of the casting course of in July, making a 12m-long prototype.
With the manufacturing unit now full, the contractor will look to begin producing the full-size concrete components earlier than the top of the yr. FLC board chairman Sébastien Bliaut informed NCE earlier this yr: “As soon as the educational curve is behind us, it’s going to take 9 weeks to make one tunnel ingredient per manufacturing line.” At its peak, there will probably be six manufacturing strains working directly.
When a component is accomplished, will probably be pushed out of the manufacturing unit in direction of the dry dock. It’s then sealed with bulkheads at every finish and the water stage within the dry dock is raised, leaving the ingredient to drift. 4 tugboats then tow it into place, the place ballast tanks contained in the ingredient will probably be crammed with water to make it sink it into place. It’s then lined in ballast concrete to and the bulkheads are faraway from the openings, making a watertight reference to the adjoining ingredient.
You’ll be able to watch the 10-month development of the large precast manufacturing unit compressed right into a one minute timelapse video beneath.
The €7.1bn (£6bn) undertaking is being overseen by Femern, a specially-created subsidiary of the Danish state-owned transport administration agency Sund & Bælt. It’s scheduled to finish in 2029.
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