Forrestfield Airport Link Project – Challenges and TBM solution

Abstract

A large number of successfully completed tunnelling projects in sensitive environments and airport areas show the highest technical and quality standards of mechanized tunnelling technology, mastering project challenges and individual tasks in the interest of customers, clients and the environment. The Forrestfield Airport Link, currently under construction in Perth, Australia, is one of these projects tackling challenges in an airport area sensitive to any kind of settlement and subsurface conditions. The paper highlights the project challenges that require a well‐adapted TBM concept and experience with the use of variable density TBM technology from the manufacturer's point of view.

Erste Projekterfahrungen mit Variable‐Density‐TVMs in Europa – Erweiterung der U‐Bahnlinie B in Lyon

“…The development of the Variable Density TBM (Figure 1), which allows flexible switching between tunnelling modes, extends the capabilities of mechanised tunnelling and enables underground infrastructures to be cons tructed even in very heterogeneous ground -from solid rock to cohesive, coarsegrained and highly permeable soil above and below the water table [3].…”