- Fernando Vara, Global Business Development Director for ACCIONA’s railways and tunnels specialised business unit, presented the three main TBM projects that the company will undertake in 2022.
ACCIONA sponsored the ninth edition of the Cutting Edge Conference: Advances in Tunnelling Technology, held in Dallas, Texas (USA) from 15 to 17 November. This conference is the most important for the tunnelling sector in the US market.
On the second day, Fernando Vara, Global Business Development Director for ACCIONA’s railways and tunnels specialised business unit, took part in one of the discussion panels entitled, “Resilient Solutions for Future Projects”. During his talk, Fernando presented the three major projects using tunnel boring machines (TBM) that the company currently has underway. These are Line 6 of the Sao Paulo metro in Brazil; the extension of the Vancouver metro in Canada; and the S19 Rzeszów Poludnie-Babica highway in Poland. The TBMs will come into operation next year in all three cases.
In the case of the Line 6 Sao Paulo metro project, this includes 12.4 km of TBM-excavated tunnel; in Canada, both of the TBMs being used will drill 3.5 km for a dual tunnel; while the TBM that will construct the S19 highway in Poland and was previously used to drill the M-30 tunnel in Madrid, has been refurbished by the SPO at its facilities in Madrid and will construct two 2 km parallel tunnels. A total of 23.4 km of tunnels will be excavated using five TBMs, with a drilling diameter between 6 and 15 metres.
This conference, organised by the Tunnelling Journal and the Underground Construction Association brings together the leading international tunnelling companies to discuss the main challenges facing the sector and to share the latest advances in technology and innovation, while analysing how they can be implemented in future underground projects.