April '12 April '12

Túnel Gastau

The first hardrock TBM drive in Brazil finished successfully in the end of January 2011.

The dead-end tunnel, located close to the city of Caraguatatuba between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, will be used for pipelines by Client Petrobras to past through an environmentally sensitive area at the coastal mountain range.
A number of shafts will connect at the end of the tunnel to lift pipelines about 500m to surface.

Recently the Tunnel has received the "ASME Global Pipeline Award" for the "Best Innovative Technology for the World´s Pipeline Industry".

Together with its JV partner Babendererde Engineers delivered construction management services and had personnel on site.
The performance monitoring and the QM work
was supported by TPC (Tunneling Process Control), a software readily available on the market.

 

  

Key data of the project:

Total tunnel length: 5.200 m
TBM tunnel length: 4.900 m
Excavation diameter: 6,18 m
TBM: Wirth Hardrock Double Shield TBM with electric main drives
Lining: Nonsealed single-pass lining with reinforced concrete segments
Rock type: Granit, Gneiss