Maintenance of rail tunnels – Strategy with vision

Abstract

Rail tunnels in Austria have to be amortized over an economic life of 150 years, so asset allocation has to focus on project control, project support and on predictive maintenance of tunnel lining and dewatering systems. Especially in view of the increase in total tunnel length by more than 100 per cent within the next ten years, the principles of predictive maintenance have to be improved. For this purpose, the development of proofed hybrid multi‐scale methods is necessary. These methods have been used in the past to evaluate stresses in shotcrete linings, and future strategies could use the same methods for stress evaluation in the whole support structure. The second major point concentrates on work on monitoring and prediction of deposits in drain pipes. We have to look closely at filling levels and the degree of hardness of the deposits.