By Lynda Myer
As one of the largest of the Brenner Base Tunnel, production of the segments for Lot H41 Sillschlucht-Pfons was started on 9 February.
Being stretched from the Sill gorge near Innsbruck via the Ahrental valley to Navis, Generation of almost 51,000 segments for this section will be up to a factory on the construction site at Ahrental over the next two-and-a-half years.
According to Romed Insam, project manager of construction lot H41: “The onsite production would remove the need for 27,000 lorry movements. This corresponds to our claim to make the construction process of the Brenner Base Tunnel as efficient as possible and at the same time to protect the environmental resources of the areas affected by the project in the best possible way.”
The Herrenknecht TBM Lilia’s first components arrived on site in January2023, whereas the determined date for commissioning this 10.37m diameter TBM from the Ahrental assembly chamber by consortium of Implenia, Webuild and CSC is due to be spring 2023 and in order to digging the 8.1km of the eastern main tunnel, it is slated to travel south.
Construction of the main tunnels heading north to Innsbruck and south to Pfons are contents of Lot H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons. Also the conventional construction methods will be the used method for excavation of almost 5.7km of this plan and around 16.4km will be dug by TBM. Interior work will also be carried out on the main tunnels, the Innsbruck emergency stop and the exploratory tunnel.
The expected time period for completion of this work with €651m (US$698m) value, is around 80 months.
As a 55km railway tunnel, the Brenner Base Tunnel will be extended from Innsbruck in Austria and Fortezza in Italy and connected to an existing line south of Innsbruck. Additionally, it will create the world’s longest underground railway connection.
