Ottawa’s Confederation Line LRT tunnel shortlisted for ITA Tunnelling Award in Paris
July 31, 2017
By
CCE
The awards will be presented on November 15 at a special ITA Tunnelling Awards ceremony held during the global AFTES Congress in Paris, November 13-16.
The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) has released the short list of nominees for its 2017 Tunnelling Awards, and making the list in the category for projects over 500 million Euro is the $2.1B Confederation Line light rail transit (LRT) in Ottawa. The project is up against metro line projects in Delhi (India), Tehran (Iran) and Qatar.
The Awards will be presented on November 15 at a special ITA Tunnelling Awards ceremony held during the global AFTES Congress in Paris, November 13-16.
The ITA Awards program was launched in 2015, with the first two ITA Tunnelling Awards events attracting more than 450 attendees and 200 candidacies.
This is the first Canadian tunnelling project to be short listed, the Confederation Line LRT downtown tunnel is 2.5 kilometers long with three underground stations.
Started in late fall 2013, the sequential excavation method (SEM) is being used to mine the tunnel.
SEM consists of advancing in increments, which are supported with shotcrete (projected concrete), followed by the installation of reinforced shotcrete and steel supports.
The method was chosen to minimize road closures and limit surface-level construction. The crews were mining through limestone as well as clay and sands.
The project is using roadheaders to dig the tunnel, instead of a tunnel boring machine. On average the tunnelling is taking place 15 metres below the surface.
The Rideau Transit Group was awarded the Confederation Line contract in February 2013 to handle the design, build and maintain the Line until 2038.
The consortium includes:
SNC-Lavalin, Ellis Don, Dragados Canada and ACS Infrastructure Canada.
Other firms include:
adamson & associates, architects
Dr. Sauer & Partners Corporation
bbb Architects
Fast & Epp
Hatch Mott MacDonald
Jensen Hughes (Sereca Fire Consulting Ltd.)
The Capital Transit Partners consortium of consulting firms began work on preliminary engineering for the 12-km LRT line in September 2010. The joint venture included four firms: Morrison Hershfield Ltd., Jacobs Associates Canada Corporation, STV Consulting (Canada) Inc., and AECOM.
