CERN Future Circular Collider – the Mining the Future competition

Abstract

CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire) is the world's largest research centre for high‐energy and particle physics. The research infrastructure contributed to the greatest successes in the field of experimental physics. A new, approximatively 91 km long subsurface infrastructure connected to the existing particle accelerator complex is being conceived in the frame of the Future Circular Collider. It would serve a global community of researchers with two subsequently operated particle colliders until the end of the 21st century. Even at an early stage of such a project, comprehensive investigations have to be carried out into the nature of the subsoil in order to find an optimal utilisation strategy for the excavated material in accordance with the national and international regulations in order to promote the recycling of excavated tunnel material in terms of resource conservation and the improvement of the sustainability of underground construction projects.