THE CHANNEL TUNNEL

Underground construction, as mostly know it as tunneling, is an alternative means of transportation that exploit the use of underground as a medium. It was firstly thought of because it provides another alternative of transportation, tunneling doesnt necessarily involve the transportation of people; tunnels can be used to transport water, oil, biogas etc. Among the first underground constructions were wells. Yes, wells are also considered to be part of underground construction. Apart from that, there were several early tunneling for mining. Example the Grimes Graves in Norfolk, UK in 2330 1740 BC and the Qanats in the middle east which was used to transport water. Tunneling is one of the most challenging construction projects to be done. There are many factors that make tunneling challenging and these might include the cost of construction and the cost of maintenance may be very high, hence, a tunneling project may not be done to its fullest capabilities. While digging or evacuating, hardness of the rock/soil and the rock soil variability may prove to be a great challenge. Due to rock/soil variation, the rock/soil may not be stable and the tunnel may collapse. An example is the incident that happened in Mufulira Mine in 25th September 1970 where the mine was beneath the No. 3 tailings dam (a place where flow-able mine waste was dumped) and the mine excavation caused chimneying (partial raveling and loosening that reached the surface). 1 million tones of tailing flowed into the mine working killing 89 miners.

This essay is going to discuss on a specific tunnel, the Channel Tunnel, mostly known as the Chunnel which happens to be one of the worlds longest railway, undersea tunnel. In this essay, we will get to see how it was constructed, what methods they used for construction and if there were any problems that they faced during the construction and how they were able to overcome them. The Channel Tunnel is a 50.5 km, undersea rail tunnel that links Folkestone, Kent near Dover in the United Kingdom (UK) with Coquelles, Pas-de-Calais near Calais in northern France beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. Channel Tunnel has the longest international tunnel, longest standard gauge railway tunnel and it is the one that has the longest underwater section, 37.9 km but the Seikan Tunnel is overall the longest railway, underwater tunnel, 53.85 km.

Furthermore, the idea of connecting France and England (The channel tunnel) had been considered since the time of Napoleon, when the first plan for building a tunnel was made. Work on the current tunnel actually started in the late 1970s but stopped because of money problems. The tunnel was opened in 6th May 1994, and the passenger services commenced at the 14th November 1994. The tunnel carries high-speed Euro-star passenger trains, Eurotunnel roll-on/roll-off vehicle transports which are the largest in the world and the international rail freight trains. In 1996, the American Society of Civil Engineers identified the tunnel as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

CONSTRUCTION:
Firstly, any tunneling project engineers need to know the nature and type of soil and rocks that they are going to be dealing with during the project. This was the same in the Channel Tunnel situation. They had to get a sound understanding of the topography and geology and the selection of the best rock strata through which to tunnel. This was made possible by the surveying that was done 20 years before tunnel construction. The surveying results confirmed that a tunnel route could be bored through a chalk marl stratum. Chalk marl was found conducive to tunneling because of its impermeability and ease of excavation and strength.

The construction of the tunnel started in 1988 and was completed in 1994. It was also found that the cost of construction happened to be 80% over run. The Objective was to construct two 7.6 m diameter rail tunnels, 30 m apart, 50 km in length and a 4.8m diameter service tunnel in between the two main tunnels; pairs of 3.3m diameter cross-passages linking the rail tunnels to the service tunnel at 375m spacing.

The cross section of the Tunnel

Eleven tunneling boring machines were used; working from both sides of the Channel, cut through chalk marl in order to construct two rail tunnels and a service tunnel. The service tunnel was used as a pilot tunnel, boring ahead of the main tunnels to determine the conditions. However, this appeared to be a major construction challenge; this is because there was a serious risk of water inflow due to the water pressure from the sea above under weak ground condition. Because the tunnel was connecting two countries, two languages, English and French had to be used as means of communication during the project. Moreover; there were two sets of national construction, safety and legal codes. To overcome these problems, the English side used different measures compared to those on the French side. The French side sealed bolted linings made of cast iron or high-strength reinforced concrete. The French used side five segments and a key segment. Furthermore, the French side owing to the greater permeability to water, they used earth pressure balance Tunneling Boring Machines (TBMs) with open and closed modes. The TBMs were closed during the initial 5 km and then operated as open while boring through the chalk marl stratum. This minimized the impact to the ground and allowed high water pressures to be withstood and it also alleviated the need to grout ahead of the tunnel. On the other hand, the British side, the main aim was speed, bolting of cast-iron lining segment was only done in areas of poor geology. Eight lining segment plus a key segment were used.

Moreover, on the English side, the simpler geology allowed faster open-faced TBMs. Six machines were used, all started digging from Shakespeare Cliff, three marine bound and three for the land tunnels. Toward the completion, the UK undersea TBMs were driven steeply downwards and buried clear of the tunnel. The French TBMs then completed the tunnel and were dismantled.

CONCLUSION:
To conclude, the Channel Tunnel faced several setbacks before and during the construction. Some of them being the cost of construction which earlier, in the 70s made it to cease and had to be continued in the late 80s. And even after the construction was completed, it was found to be 80% over run. Language was also a problem because the project required in two languages, English and French, and using two sets of national construction, safety and legal codes. Apart from that, undersea tunneling has a serious risk of water inflow due to the water pressure from the sea above under weak ground condition. Even though the Channel Tunnel faced a number of impedes, the engineers found ways to overcome them and made the project successful. Because of the Channel Tunnel, people are now able to move from England to France and vice versa with ease. This has made possible for businessmen to exploit their market to an international level. And as far as the environment is concerned, it is way less polluting using the train rather than driving or using planes. The Channel Tunnel might have subjected great challenges, but its outcome proved to be useful and important for the two countries.