Impact of new tunnels on those from the industrial era in Spain

Abstract

Tunnels have been constructed in Spain since Roman times, when they were constructed for both mining and water transmission purposes. Those tunnels were bored using the available tools for soils and soft rocks and with mining methods for hard rocks: the ‘fire setting’ technique and wooden wedges soaked with water to split the rock. Further tunnelling took place in the middle ages, but the advent of the nineteenth century industrial age heralded increased activity – for example, for railway network expansion, often mining related. These tunnels signal an important heritage, which must be protected through legislation and environmental awareness. Current plans for network expansion, in particular for the Asturias region, require appreciation and sensible protection of these old, mature tunnels right across the whole spectrum of the development process. This paper presents five different types of examples in which the presence of old tunnels has had an important impact on the solution chosen for further tunnelling with or without rehabilitation or reuse of an existing tunnel, and stresses how these solutions are or should be presented publicly.

Directional Core Drilling as an Approach to Reduce Uncertainty in Tunneling Construction

“…This fact creates an important remaining uncertainty that can influence the total cost of a tunnel and the finishing deadline due to low excavation performance [17] or TBM entrapments [18], among other setbacks. It also leads to potential problems in terms of the physical stability of the construction and environmental and safety issues [8,[19][20][21][22][23]. Therefore, it is crucial to define a general and flexible system for analyzing costs in the construction phase of a tunnel and, therefore, reduce the uncertainty of the project whenever possible [24].…”

Vibration Analysis and Empirical Law Definition for Different Equipment in a Civil Construction

“…The concern about historical heritage and its conservation has been growing in our society over time, having more and more constructions tagged as architectural heritage. This fact, together with the increase in new infrastructure and population density, makes crucial the determination of potential vibration affections in sensitive constructions generated by new buildings and mechanical surface excavations or blasting operations [1][2][3], while the opening of underground excavations can also have an important impact [4,5]. Some research has been done to define the impact of using construction equipment on sensitive constructions [6,7] and identify the structural damage caused by vibrations [8], as well as the prediction of the maximum vibration that can be generated [9].…”