By rosebell
Using TBM Lorena, the excavation process of the 106m-long, 1.5m-diameter tunnel in Saltley Viaduct Gas Diversion project, which stretches from east to west beneath the Derby to Birmingham railway, has been completed by United Living Infrastructure Services (ULIS).
With the aim of maintaining gas supplies to the Birmingham, this tunnel is due to house a replacement gas pipeline and is also required to facilitate a large infrastructure scheme.
The responsibility of delivering this tunnel was up to ULIS, a subsidiary of United Living Group, and tunneling subcontractor HB Tunnelling on behalf of Cadent.
Being installed in challenging wet ground conditions in a constrained site between the River Rea and the Grand Union Canal, the segmental shafts are 14m deep and up to 7.5m in diameter.
The spoil generated from the shaft excavations will be transported to a local materials management facility for reuse.
Following completion of the main tunneling work, currently ULIS is going to proceed with the gas pipe installation and connections to the existing gas network before removing the redundant pipeline. The planned date for completing the work is April next year.
According to Cadent director of capital delivery Neil Bethell: “This was and continues to be a challenging project from the start, with significant risks to be assessed and managed within very tight timescales. The successful construction of the tunnel is a fantastic achievement by all involved and was only made possible by all parties working closely together.”
ULIS managing director Conor Bray said it was a significant milestone and displayed the hard work and close collaboration of everyone working on the project.
