World Tunnel Congress 2013

Dear reader,

The World Tunnel Congress is coming up soon.

The main themes on Tuesday, 4th of July will be:

• The Open Session with the main focus on Global Perspectives
•  The ITAtech Innovation Session with reports on the Activity Groups about tunnel boring machines, lining, waterproofing and monitoring
• The Swiss session with the topic "Choice of Tunnelling Method"
• The technical sessions with the attention on construction technology developments and case histories
• The ITA COSUF with safety challenges and solutions

The main themes on Wednesday, 5th of July will be:

• The Swiss session with the main topic "Gotthard Base Tunnel" - planning, challenges, innovations and contract management
• The young Swiss tunnellers with reports about squeezing conditions and face stability issues
• The technical sessions with focus on project planning, design and analysis methods, more construction technology developments and case histories

For further information: world tunnel congress 2013

If you are interested in special themes of the World Tunnel Congress 2013, or who I should see, visit or talk to, please let me know in the comments.

I hope you have fun exploring the underground like I do.

Tunnelling in Switzerland

The country Switzerland is situated in the heart of Europe. It is a connecting point for the European traffic lines (TEN).

Switzerland is composed of 60% of the Alps. Therefore it is natural to build tunnels and use the underground space for environmental and energy matters like hydro power plants. This post deals with the big traffic lines through Switzerland.

The two main connections of the Genoa - Amsterdam axis are the Gotthard Base Tunnel and the Loetschberg Base Tunnel. Those tunnels are built to reduce the heavy goods transports on the roads and to put them on the rails.

Location of the Loetschberg and Gotthard Base Tunnel (http://mycoordinates.org/)

Basic Information about the Gotthard Base Tunnel:

• 57 km long (35.4 miles)
• 2 single-track tubes
• Excavation of 2/3rd with TBM, 1/3rd with drill and blast
• opening to the traffic: end of 2016
• in combination with Ceneri base tunnel (15 km / 9.3 miles long, open to traffic End of 2019)
• total costs 18.7 billion CHF (19.3 billion USD) (1998)

Basic Information about the Loetschberg Base Tunnel:

• 34.6 km long (21.5 miles)
• 2 single-track tubes
• Excavation with drill and blast
• opening to the traffic: 2007
• total costs 4.3 billion CHF (4.4 billion USD)

Why World Tunnel Congress

The World Tunnel Congress is an annual General Assembly of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA).

The ITA was founded in 1974 by a group of nineteen nations. At the moment the association is comprised of 64 member nations. The aims of the ITA are:

• to support the people, the cities, the increasing flow of individuals (traffic) and the environment by strengthening the use of the underground space e.g. tunnels

• to support a sustainable development of underground structures,

• to gather and promote advancements in planning, design, technology, construction, safety, and maintenance of underground structures and spaces, and

• to scrutinize issues and study questions about related themes.

To resolve the questions, the ITA formed various committees for different areas in the field of underground structures and spaces:

• ITA-COSUF
• Committee on Operational Safety of Underground Facilities
• To deal with operational safety and security of underground facilities
• ITA-CUS
• Committee on Underground Space
• Discussions of topics about the "strategic importance for underground space use and tunnelling"
• ITA-CET
• Committee on Education and Training
• Creation of training sections, coordination of interactions and exchanges of know-how
• ITA tech
• Committee on technologies
• Several Activity Groups discuss technical questions to improve new technology and their use

The annual World Tunnel Congress is a place for exchange of knowledge regarding underground topics as well as cultural aspects of each host nation. 
This years meeting will be held in Geneva, Switzerland. For the year 2014 the host nation will be Brazil (Iguassu) and in 2015 it will be Croatia (Dubrovnik).

Launch Post

Hello dear reader, my name is Stephanie Lange. I am a Civil Engineer working in the domain of tunneling in Switzerland. I am fascinated by the geology of the earth and the tunnels going through to link two separate parts with each other.

I intend to write about the wide range of underground structures and tunnels all over the world, including the upcoming World Tunnel Congress in Geneva.

The blog will have the following topics:

• What is going on in the world of tunneling → World Tunnel Congress
• Tunnel project case studies
• Industry news
• Accomplished solutions and their previous problems
• My opinion on anything
• Discussions regarding tunneling around the world

If there are topics you would like covered or if you are interested in special themes of the World Tunnel Congress, who I should see, visit or talk to, please let me know in the comments.

I am going to put articles every 10 days till 2 weeks. During the World Tunnel Congress it will be more frequently due to the wide input of information.

Forecast:

• Mai 15th – What is World Tunnel Congress
• Mai 26th – Tunneling in Switzerland
• June 3rd – World Tunnel Congress – main topics

I hope you will have fun reading and discovering my blog.