Welcome to (or back to) the ITA Family by Harvey Parker ITA President

ITA is like a family. We have common interests and we meet to share these interests and to re-establish our professional relationships. I invite you to become active in the “ITA Family.” Whether you are new to ITA or whether you have been active in ITA before, please consider participating in those ITA functions and activities which interest you. ITA has something for everyone who is involved in the underground industry and you can participate at whatever level of involvement you wish.

Special Note to Past ITA Friends. If you are less active in ITA than you used to be, I warmly welcome you back to the ITA Family and urge you to become active again at a level of activity consistent with your interest. ITA has improved dramatically in the past few years. I assure you that you will be very pleasantly surprised with the significant changes and improvements to ITA. Our Secretariat has relocated to Lausanne and our website is completely new and user-friendly providing you instant access to the vast resources that are available from ITA. Moreover, we have numerous programs and activities emphasizing safety and training, etc. Please join us again. Why not contact your Member Nation representative, the Secretariat, any member of the Executive Council, Claude Berenguier, or me to re-connect with the ITA Family? We would like to hear from you and to see you again, at least by mail or email and, if possible, at our next meeting, in Istanbul.

Special Note to New ITA Friends. ITA holds a World Tunnel Congress every year which documents the latest information about the tunnel and underground industry. In the days before the congress and during the congress, we conduct business and technical meetings at the highest technical level. In addition, this coming year, an introductory training workshop will be held during the week prior to the annual congress which will be held in Istanbul in May 2005.

Throughout the year, ITA co-sponsors regional conferences and training sessions in various parts of the world which gives you other opportunities to participate.

However, if for any reason, you can not attend a conference, you can still participate in ITA activities. There are 13 Working Groups that you can contribute to and, at the same time, gain from the activity and work products of the Working Group. Their topics range from technical tunnel construction and design issues to contractual, environmental, safety, and planning issues. The Working Groups conduct business throughout the year by email and by special forums on our website. This makes it easier for everyone to participate.

Austria

Austrian Tunnel Day - Salzburg - Austria - 6 October (read more)

ITA Past-President Andre Assis and Secretary General Claude Berenguier were invited by ITA-Austria to participate to the Austrian Tunnel Day organized in Salzburg on October 6th at the occasion of EUROCK 2004 and the 53. Geomechanik Colloquium.

This year, the theme of the Austrian Tunnel Day was "Innovative solutions for underground works in Austria and abroad". This day organized for the 4th time gathered around 600 participants from 21 countries. After the Welcome Words from Dr Golleger, Vice-Mayor of Salzburg, 12 interessant papers have presented during the two half days on conventionnal and mechanized tunnelling. An exhibition with 37 companies wera also organized.

Andre Assis was unfortunately unabled to attend; the Secretary General read the ITA message prepared for the Opening Ceremony (read more); the Secretary General gave also some information on the ITA ongoing work and the Vice-President Harald Wagner made some comments about the ITA Strategy (read more : text + presentation)

Canada

18th National TAC Conference - Edmonton, Canada - 26-28 September

President Harvey Parker, Immediate Past-President Andre Assis and Secretary General Claude Berenguier were invited to participate to the 18th Conference organized in Edmonton from 26 to 28th September by TAC, the Canadian ITA national group. The Conference gathered more than 120 participants, mostly from Canada, but also from USA, Brazil and Switzerland; the main topic was „Advances in Tunnelling and Trenchless Techniques; two keynote speeches were presented by Walter Steiner from Switzerland on "Tunnelling in the Alps: recent challenges and past lessons" and by Ray Sterling, ISTT President and former animateur of WG 13 of the ITA, on"Tunnels and Trenchless Technology: International Technology Transfer"; Andre Assis presented a lecture on "Development of Urban Underground Infrastructures in the world"; ITA representatives were very impressed by the new development of Tunnelling in Canada, especially in the cities of Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

A meeting between the representatives from TAC and the ITA delegation was also organized in order to make a new step in the relationship between the two organizations; ITA met the new elected TAC Board for the period starting January 2005 and was pleased to learn that the TAC representative to ITA is now Rick Lovat, ITA Prime Sponsor.

Italy

The Italian Tunnelling Association SIG is please to present the Congress they organize from November 16 to 19. download the programme and registration form.

Russia

Transtroj 50th Anniversary

This Anniversary was organised very careful and took place between September 27, 2004, ( arrival of the guests ) and lasted until September 29 , 2004 ( evening with Bolshoj Theater ) . The Opening Ceremony under the leadership of Mr.Breshnev , President of Transstroj , was held in the morning of September 28 , 2004 , in the Transstroj Headquater Building .

Transstroj is uniting more than 2500 individual companies with approx. 300 000 employees such allowing the company to be considered as one of if not the largest constuction company in the world . Mr.Breshnev gave an historical overview of the development of Transstroj underlining the technical achievements of the company in the field of infrastructural projects realized in the past focusing on transportation . Medals of honor have been given to those who have achieved merits for the company.

After lunch in the beautiful in-house cantina of Transstroj there was a Round Table discussion between foreigner guests and the Management of Transstroj . Being the official ITA Representative and the first speaker , a warm greeting adress together with cordial Anniversary Congratulations of the ITA President , Mr.Harvey Parker , and of the ITA Secretary General , Mr.Claude Berenguier , has been delivered to all of the Transstroj Leaders . Beyond the ITA Presentation for reasons of improved communication , it has been mentioned, that ITA is appreciating the most valuable input into ITA of the Russian Tunnelling Society over the past almost 15 years, in particular the input given by Mr.Vlasow , by Mr.Belenkyi and by Prof.Bulychev. The other speakers commented about their relations with Transstroj.

After the Round Table was finished there was a bus transfer organized to the Hotel Rossia, where the real Anniversary Ceremony took place . After an introduction was given by Mr.Breshnev , several official letters have been presented before the Mayor of Moscow , Mr.Lushkov has given his visionary speech on the future sustainable development of infrastructure in Moscow and the important role of Transstroj in the context of transportation in Moscow and in Russia. Among other outstanding projects, the construction of the 3600 km long Baikal - Amur Railway , as it was constructed and completed by Transstroj , has been mentioned in several of the speeches and was presented in the background video animation at the stage .

The speeches have been followed by an cascade of entertainment performers , famous groups and individual singers , publically well known composers , brilliant groups of dancers , spreading the fascination of Russian art and lifestyle into the auditorium . After more than three hours and the final firework , all of the 2500 invited persons have been guided to the big ball room and the VIP lounges for an impressive Dinner party .

The next day was dedicated to a technical tour , which started visiting and actually using the not yet to the public opened new Moscow Monorail System. This elevated system with an average elevation of approx. 7 m , will supplement the existing public mass transport in connecting the North-East of Moscow with the North-West, having an overall length of approx. 5.4 km in a loop . Thereafter the technical tour group got a chance to visit the 3 rd Ring Road including the Lefortovo Tunnel , which has been completed in record time and is considered to belong to the worlds largest TBM driven tunnels . It has been recognized with interest , that there have been good reasons to construct the second Lefortovo Tunnel Tube by using cut and cover technology .

The evening of the same day has been highlighted by an invitation of Transstroj to the Bolshoi Theater , where the Tschaikovsky / Burmeister ballet The Snowmaiden was performed . It has been performed by highest world class dancers and as excellent as it could be . It has also been a perfect and harmonious finale of almost a week of most enjoyable hospitality which will remembered for ever in the heads of the participants .

Future meetings in Italy

On Tuesday November the 16th, three ITA WGs will meet in Turin, just before the Congress organized by SIG.

- W.G. 16 "Quality", C. Oggeri, Animateur

- W.G. 17 "Long tunnels at great depth", P.Grasso, Animateur

- W.G. 18 "Training", D. Peila, Animateur

WG 19 met in Salzburg

At the occasion of the Austrian Tunnel Day and Geomechanics Conference in Salzburg, the WG 19 organized a meeting with around 25 participants coming from Germany, Austria, Italy, Czech Republic and Switzerland. They worked intensively on the 1st draft of the report on conventionnal tunnelling.

WG 5 Health & Safety

The updated and extended version of the booklet, first published in 1989, on Safe Working in Tunnelling is now available on the ITA web site. This booklet is intended for tunnel workers and firts line supervision. It is self explaining as shown here after. (download the booklet - pdf 10Mo). A copy has been sent to all ITA Member Nations, in order to prepare the translation of this booklet in their own language (read the letter sent to the MN).

WG17 Long Tunnels at great depth

The executive summary is now available on the web site.

Long and deep tunnels are characterized by extreme conditions for risk assessment and risk management along the whole lifetime of the project. This refers to the early planni,g and ground investigations; the design, including the intermediate access shafts or adits, the rescue or multi-purpose chambers; and other safety features for construction and operation.

This report is intended to serve the international tunnelling community as a guideliine for planning, design, construction and operation of this particular kind of tunnels. It recommends an approach or a methodology for solving the major problems involved. Specific reference is made to the approaches and requirements:

• The investigation methods for the geological, hydrogeological and geomechanical conditions of the ground, specially related to the great depth: high in situ rock stresses, plasticity or squeezing, rock burst, fault and shear zones with high water pressure, high ground temperature, etc

• The risk assessment and risk management process, mainly related to the great length, which implies : a large time extension of the design and the construction process, even with intermediate accesses, a considerable amount of ressources needed, a high social and environmental impact of the work and the need to assure a safe operation of the tunnel.

• The specific construction aspects for long headings, the logistics of site installations partly located underground, ventilation, haulage and transport of construction materials, as well as the control of the excavation advance rates, support selection and performance.

• The safety requirements, in general for the construction, or specifically for railway and road tunnels operation, in relation with the traffic load.

Download the report

Training course in Istanbul

The final programm for the ITA Tunnel Engineering training Course in Istanbul is now available. This training course will take place from Thursday May the 5th to Saturday May the 7th.

The main topics will be :

- Why go underground

- General aspects of tunnel construction

- Conventionnal tunnelling

- Cut-and-cover in urban areas

- Ground monitoring

- Site investigations

- Ground reinforcements

- Mechanized tunnelling

- Immersed tunnels

Specific projects such as AlpTranbsit projects in Switzerland, Lyon-Turin project in France/Italy or the metro of Brazilia in Brazil will serve as examlpes.

Download the full programm.

Didactic material

On the other hand, the WG18 animateur prepared and circulated to all WG animateurs a presentation frame for all ITA WGs'reports as well as an example established for WG4.

Number of Future events have been updated in the web site. Please have a look.

The registration for the Congress is open (dowload the registration form).

The organizer has released the call for abstracts for the World Tunnel Congress 2006, that will take place in Seoul from 22 to 27 April. (download it) The deadlines are as follows :

Abstract deadline 01 March 2005

Notification of Abstracts 01 May 2005

Full-length paper deadline 01 September

Application for Exhibition 01 November 2005

The organizer has also published an interim report on the preparation of the congress (read more)

Opening of the Hsuehshan Tunnel in Taiwan

The construction of the 12.9-kilometer Hsuehshan Tunnel is the most crucial and challenging part of the 31-kilometer Taipei-Ilan Expressway, which starts at Nankang in Taipei City, runs southeast through the Hsuehshan Mountain Range, links Taipei Basin and Lanyang Plain, and ends at Toucheng in Ilan County. The Hsuehshan Tunnel is composed of 2 main tunnels (westbound and eastbound) and a pilot tunnel. Due to the adverse geological conditions encountered, it took considerable time to complete these 3 tunnels. Namely, July 1991 to October 2003 for the pilot tunnel, July 1993 to April 2004 for the westbound main tunnel, and July 1993 to September 2004 for the eastbound main tunnel.

Since the west portal of the Hsuehshan Tunnel is located within the Taipei Water Resource Protection Area, all 3 tunnels were originally planned to be driven from the eastern portal and head west, using only TBMs (tunnel boring machines) to reduce the impact on water quality. However, the tunnel drives were severely delayed by unexpectedly difficult geology, with fractured rock and massive inflows of water. In order to expedite the construction, alternatives such as using additional working faces at the vertical ventilation shaft #2 for all 3 tunnels, and an additional working face at the interchange station #2 for the westbound main tunnel were adopted. All these alternatives later on proved to work successfully in allowing tunneling to increase substantially. Along the tunnel alignment, there are 6 major faults, numerous fracture zones, and high-pressure groundwater everywhere. Hence serious ground collapses with groundwater ingress took place periodically during tunnel construction. There were 13 stoppages for the TBM section and 8 collapses for the D&B (drill and blast) section in the pilot tunnel excavation. In the eastbound main tunnel excavation, 28 collapses occurred. Meanwhile, in the westbound main tunnel excavation, the boring machine was badly damaged in a major ground collapse with a huge groundwater surge of 750 liters per second. As a result, the TBM was aborted and conventional D&B was then employed in September of 1999, in the westbound main tunnel. Unfortunately, 11 men lost their lives in the past 13 years on Hsuehshan Tunnel construction.

Today, all 3 tunnels have been broken through, and 2 out of the 3 sets of twin vertical ventilation shafts have completed the main excavation. However, there is so much to be done before the Hsuehshan Tunnel could open to traffic. For instance, there are 4,888 meters of invert gallery, 9,625 meters of inner lining, 25,859 meters of pavement (for both westbound and eastbound tunnels), and installation of the pertinent mechanical, electrical, traffic control, and fire fighting systems. In order to speed up the work, the current construction activities for Hsuehshan Tunnel are performed in parallel operations by 700 workers, in 3 shifts, 24 hours a day. Above all, the teamwork practice, the production quality, the crew safety, and the timing control are all our concerns. With Taiwanese engineers’ determination and perseverance, the Taipei-Ilan Expressway can meet the completion date of 2005.

Safety for freeway users has always been considered as the highest priority. The MOTC (Ministry of Transportation and Communications) has organized a task force team for the pre-opening examination of long highway tunnels in Taiwan. Therefore, Hsuehshan Tunnel will be examined thoroughly before its opening by the task force team to ensure public safety. In the near future, the Taipei-Ilan Expressway will significantly reduce the travel time between Taipei and Ilan from the current 2.5 hours to 30 minutes. Also, it will promote the regional development in eastern and western Taiwan as well as tourism in Ilan County that have been long expected.

Urban soft ground tunnelling in China, experiences from Shanhai and other cities - Wang Zhen Xin; Bai Yun

This paper introduces the different kinds of urban soft ground tunnels in China built by shield method, immersed tube method and pipe jacking method. Although the history of urban soft ground tunneling is only around forty years in China, enormous tunnels were built together with great progress especially since last decades. A lot of experiences and lessons gained from practices are not only valuable to Chinese tunnel engineers but also show value to tunneling industry in the world. In this paper we focus on the tunnel activities in Shanghai. Some significant technical features are highlighted.

Cross Section of the Da Lian Road Tunnel

The New York metro is 100 years old

"I declare the subway open" said myor Georges B. McClelland at about 2p.m. on Ocober 27, 1904. His hand on the switch, he drove the new electric powered cars out of the City Hall station for the ride under Broadway to 145th Street in Harlem. And every thing began to change!

In fact the ground was brken in March 1900 in Manhattan. Twelve thousand men worked to build the subway for the privately owned Interborough Rapid Transit Company (read more).

1st China International & Underground Space Exhibition & Conference (Tunnel China 2004) - Shanghai, China, 16-18 June

The 1st China International & Underground Space Exhibition & Conference has been organized by the Tunnel and Underground Engineering Branch of China Civil Engineering (CCES). This event included a large exhibition as well a conference. The keynote speech has been made by Andre Assis, ITA Past President on Sensible Underground Solutions for Urban Problems as ITA was "honorable supporter of Tunnel China.

4th Intercoastal Conference in Tunnelling & Underground Space Technology - Jinan, China - 21-22 August

From Saturday to Sunday, Aug. 21-22, 2004, the Underground Space Branch of Chinese Association for Rock Mechanic and Engineering(CARME), Tunnelling Branch of China Civil Engineering Society(CCES) and Tunnelling Association from Taiwan, held the 4th Intercoastal Conference in Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology at Shangdong University in Jinan (Shangdong Province). ITA Executive Council joined the conference and held a EC meeting at the same time.

During the Conference, ITA Keeynote Speech was made on the title of "Environment Protection for Underground Engineering" by Harvey Parker, ITA President, and"Behavior of Tunnel Lining during Fire and the Protection Measure" by Prof. Koichi Ono, ITA 1st Vice-President.

Other opening address have been made by • Zhu Weishen, Professor and Director of Shandong University; • Li Yunyun, President of Shandong Province; • Qian Qihu, Shandong Science Association; • Huang Tsan-Hwei, Chinese Society for Rock Mechanics and Engineering; • Zhan Tao, President of Shandong University; • Zhou Pinglan, Secretary of Institute of Rock and Soil

Mechanics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

There were 10 EC members who joined the conference and EC Meeting.

There were 46 delegates from Taiwan, 2 from Hongkong and 169 from mainland. In the conference, 65 papers were presented and discussed. Other 195 papers embodied in the conference proceedings. The maintopics of this conference were: • Tunnelling in highway and railway; • Hydraulic Power station projects; • Underground space planning.

World Road Association - PIARC

The collaboration between PIARC and ITA is getting closer. The two associations are preparing a general agreement in this purpose.

They are at the moment preparing a special issue of the Journal "Routes/Roads" on Fire Safety in Tunnels. This issue should be published in October.

PIARC has completely renewed its website with new and updated content. Have a look

International Society from Trenchless Technology - ISTT

Have a look on the presentation made by Ray Sterling, ISTT President (TAC Conference in Edmonton)