What will 2015 hold for the tunneling industry? Tunnel Business Magazine asked a panel of 4 industry experts that question. The panel consisted of a Colorado School of Mines Professor as well as reps from Black and Veatch, AECOM, and Kenall Manufacturing. In general they seem to agree that there are opportunities in the US for large combined sewer outfall (CSO) projects, water distribution projects, and even high-speed rail, particularly in California. [Source: Check out all of the analysis at Tunnel Business Magazine]
Miscellaneous
Happy National Tunneling Day (UK)
The British Tunnelling Society (BTS) is encouraging our profession and the public to celebrate National Tunneling Day today, December 7. Their goal is to promote the industry (and its many professions) to students of all ages […]
Deep Foundations
SAIDEL Engineering Designs First Residential Building above Subway Tunnels in West Bucharest
How do you design deep foundations above a subway tunnel? Very carefully…and with PLAXIS 3D FEM geotechnical modeling and analysis! […]
Project Related
Niagara Tunnel – Crappy rock, Horizontal stress, SLOOOOOW progress
[Updated November 17, 2009] A few new posts from Ontario-geofish [/Updated]
Those with interest in rock mechanics and tunneling might be interested in this project. The Ontario Power Generation (OPG) company is the owner of a $600M (Canadian) construction project to create a third hydro power tunnel under Niagara Falls. Apparently the project is having all kinds of problems with overbreak in some very difficult tunneling conditions which means very slow progress and big $$ overruns. (Photo from niagarafrontier.com)
I’ve been meaning to post something on this project for some time. I admit that my perspective is biased by the viewpoint you can find on the Ontario-geofish blog. I’ve mentioned Harold Asmis before, he’s the owner of the OG blog, and a former OPG employee if I understand correctly. He left OPG for a career doing geophysics and earthquake engineering for the Nuclear Power industry in Canada. I highly recommend his blog, he has great insight into tunneling, earthquakes, siting of nuclear power plants not to mention opinions on all kinds of other things. His writing style is very colorful and entertaining as well.
So, Harold has written a whole series of blog posts on the Niagra Tunnel project, including a 5-part series entitled "The Disaster of the Niagara Tunnel" and a 4-part series called "Niagara Tunnel: doing it Right". He is not directly involved with the project, but his long career with OPG and related disciplines gives him some great insights. I’ve collected a list of some of his blog posts on the Niagara Tunnel project as well as a few other links about the project. Click through for the good stuff.