2009

Drawn cable tunnel Beneluxplein

 

The opening of the drawn cable tunnel under the Beneluxplein was on 10 September 2009. It has been a sensational project at one of the busiest infrastructure nodes in the Netherlands. An extensive project with a contract price of approx. 4.5 million euros and also the longest drawn cable tunnel ever constructed in the Netherlands. The construction of the first tube of the tunnel is the result of the construction of the Betuwe route and the port railway. Due to electrification, the standard for the cathode protection of pipes on the north side of the Vondelingenweg could no longer be fulfilled. To exclude any social risks, the existing water pipe had to be moved to the south side. This had the considerable advantage that a direct connection to the piping route could then be made. The new connection comprises one of the busiest nodes in the country. This is not surprising, with the Botlek area around the corner. In the new tunnel, there is room for fifteen different pipelines.

The existing connection of the pipelines to the piping route of the City of Rotterdam was complex. To make this possible in the original situation, it was necessary for the pipelines to cross the Vondelingenweg once, then under national trunk road A4 and back across the Vondelingenweg. Only then was it possible to access the Rotterdam piping route. A complex U-shaped path made adjustments and operations needlessly complicated and expensive. The tunnel brought an end to this situation. The pipelines are now also immediately accessible for inspection and maintenance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overview of the tunnel; bottom left: cables used for pulling

  

Anecdote

During the preparations, a handwritten annotation was discovered on an old drawing of the area. It was in unrecognisable handwriting, but it wasn’t there for nothing. After further investigation it turned out to be an English thousand-pound bomb from the end of the Second World War. The bomb lay exactly in the place where the cone penetration tests were planned. The bomb lies at 30 metres and is stable on the sand. You don’t take any risks with them. This introduced a difficult complication. Much preparation had already been done. The complication was resolved by moving the building at the western end to the south.

 

Realisation

The tunnel was drawn through the road embankments of the Beneluxplein in three sections. At the intervening sections, separate tunnels were constructed at ground level and were subsequently connected to the drawn cable tunnel sections. The tunnel has an internal width of 4 metres and a height of 2.7 metres. Tunnel 1 is 60 metres long, tunnel 2 is 65 metres and the last one is 42.5 metres. The whole route to the connection with the piping route is 338 metres and crosses the A4 national trunk road three times.

 

Drawing the tunnel sections was executed by drilling eight tension bars through the embankment, which were attached to a pulling system on the other side. Due to the dimensions of the tunnel sections, a great deal of pulling and pressure were needed, together amounting to six hundred tons. At the front of the tunnel a cutting head was attached, which was drawn through the embankment. This cutting head is best compared with a “potato-chip cutter”. After 20 centimetres, the soil and sand that falls into the tunnel via the cutting head is carried away. In this way, it is possible to progress four to five metres per day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View of the pulling rig, seen from the embankment

 

The entire project from the planning phase and design up to and including commissioning took three years. Lievense was responsible for the overall project management and was in this framework responsible for the construction, calculations and supervision. For the realisation of the tunnel we worked in a collaborative construction team between the contracting combination Dubbink /Hegeman and consulting engineers Lievense. This form of collaboration is successful and contributes towards efficient communication and decision making.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tunnel now crosses the embankment

 

Commissioning

One of the first pipelines to make use of the tunnel is a water pipeline with a diameter of 1000 mm belonging to Evides. This pipeline was installed simultaneously with the construction of the tunnel and goes under the railway for a length of 672 metres via HDD boring, the A15 and many cables and pipelines were drilled to a depth of 20 metres. The following pipeline to come in the tunnel is a multi-product 12-inch pipeline that transports oily substances from Rotterdam to Antwerp. The interest shown in this efficient tunnel connection by pipeline owners is great. During the planning, the following arrangement was taken into account, where space is also provided for cables and a walkway:

• 2 hot-water pipelines with a diameter of 70 cm excluding insulation,

• 1 cold-water pipeline with a diameter of 100 cm,

• 1 pipeline with a diameter of 28”,

• 2 pipelines with a diameter of 6”,

• 3 pipelines with a diameter of 8”,

• 3 pipelines with a diameter of 10”,

• 3 pipelines with a diameter of 12”.

 

15 pipelines that together amount to a substantial capacity for underground transport over long distances.

 

With the realisation of this project, the importance of knowledge development in underground construction, which is essential to be able to respond to future logistics problems, was underlined. The possibilities for underground transport are numerous and the above-ground infrastructure can be relieved of an enormous amount of pressure. With the realisation of this drawn cable tunnel between the Rotterdam piping routes and the National piping route, an essential underground artery has been achieved, through which a great deal of money will be saved in the future. For example, with the performance of maintenance and extensions to existing pipelines. The clustering of underground pipeline infrastructure is becoming increasingly important. The completion of this project coincided beautifully with the 30-year anniversary of the Netherlands Piping Route. An initiative that for its time could be called extremely progressive.

 

 

Illustrations: various views taken during construction, photo of the opening by deputy drs. Cora van den Nieuwenhuizen with the portfolio mobility and infrastructure; upkeep of the Province of North Brabant.

 

Reference: 

De Ondergrondse

dispuut Geo Engineering TU Delft

newsletter October 2009

www.ondergrondse.nl