Testing
As part of the Koralm tunnel (lot KAT 3) two tunnels, which are 5.9 km long and with a 9.5 m external diameter, will be driven by a bi-modal TBM and will be lined with about 45,000 segments forming 2028 rings (7+1 segments sealed with ES Rubber gaskets TunnelFlex 36 S) and 4221 rings (7+1 segments sealed with ES Rubber gaskets TunnelFlex 36 MIN). Water pressures up to 6 bars in the neogene zone are tightened with TunnelFlex 36 S, water pressures in the crystalline zones are sealed with TunnelFlex 36 MIN.
When the Austrian Koralmbahn tunnel is completed it will shorten the journey time from Klagenfurt to Graz by two hours. The 130 km Koralmbahn forms a crucial part of the trans-European railway network (Baltic-Adriatic Corridor) from Gdansk in Poland to Venice at the Mediterranean coast. The central part of the Koralmbahn is the 32.9km-long Koralm tunnel, which is segmented into three construction lots: two on the Styrian side (KAT 1 and KAT 2) and one on the Carinthian side (KAT 3). The third lot KAT 3 is located entirely in the province of Carinthia and starts at the western portal. On 09.09.2013 the OEBB Infrastructure AG awarded Porr AG with thecontract for the construction lot KAT 3. Almost 8 km of the southern tube already existed in the form of the top heading which had been constructed as exploratory tunnels Paierdorf and Mitterpichling from 2004 to 2010. The remaining 2.7 km of the southern tube to the break-through point with lotKAT 2 are being excavated using full-face drill and blast following the principles of NATM.
The northern tube with a length of approximately 12 km will be constructed with a single shield TBM, equipped with earth pressure components for the first 5 km in the Neogene sediments as well as in the Lavanttal fault zone. The EPB shield machine has to be converted underground to a single shield TBM for the remaining crystalline bedrock section with a length of 7 km. At the moment the TBM is being assembled at Mitterpichling, the western Portal, near St.Andrae in the Lavanttal valley.
The main construction of the lot KAT3 started in December 2013 and is expected to be finished in 2020. The building of lot KAT 3 will provide 1.6 million m³ of excavation material until the final breakthrough of the north tube in 2018. The single track tubes cross the rock massif with a overburden of up to 1200 m and the distance between the tubes is approximately 40 m. Cross passages connect the tubes every 500 m.
Read ES Rubber Press Release and visit <http://www.esrubber.com>
www.esrubber.com. Click here for further information on lot KAT3, here and
at/42 for tunnelbuilder archive. 47/15.
