By rosebell
As the factory in Ahrental, Austria has generated just over 59,000 segments, a production rate of almost 90 prefabricated shotcrete pieces per day, since inaugurating in February 2023, the last segment has come off the production line for the H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons section of the Brenner Base Tunnel.
Considering that the Ahrental construction site had no rail line for material supply, the ARGE H41 chose to produce the rings on site. Production was organised on a line with divided into phases: moulding, reinforcement, shotcrete and curing.
With the aim of providing continuity, optimising timing and costing, an internal transport system provided quality standards.
The location of transporting segments after storage was to the heart of the mountain to the TBM, 1km beneath ground, using a specially developed vehicle and then a special train.
While almost 29,500 lorry journeys would have been required or ftransporting segments to the construction site if them had been produced elsewhere, only 3,000 trips took place to supply construction materials and the reinforcement steel.
According to Romed Insam, project manager for Lot H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons: “Thanks to this on-site production, tens of thousands of lorry trips were avoided.This meant not only far less disturbance for the surrounding communities, but also shows that modern infrastructure projects can be carried out efficiently and yet respect the environment.”
Marco Reith, project manager for Implenia, ARGE H41, was pleased with the achievements and stated: “Thanks to Implenia’s experience and the close co-operation with BBT SE, we were able to produce extremely high-quality prefab shotcrete elements and do it in a sustainable manner. This was to the benefit of local companies as well, since they were our suppliers. Once production ends, part of the plant will be used to produce steel reinforcements.”
Commissioned in summer 2023, TBMs Ida and Lilia are advancing south towards the neighbouring H53 Pfons-Brenner lot on the H41 Sill Gorge-Pfons lot and they are due to excavate just under 17k. Currently, Ida is about 400m the destination in the town of Navis, and Lilia has 800m to complete.
