As Maria, the tunnel boring machine approaches the house section of her round trip to Hampton Roads Harbor, another TBM has wrapped her role in expanding another of the historic bridge complexes in the region.
About ten kilometers away, as the gull flies, the Earth’s 308 -foot pressure balance machine extracted more than 6,300 feet for the new parallel tube of Chesapeake Bay, the new tube parallel to the Thimble Shoal channel, one of the two underwater passages along the 23 -mile bond between the continental land of Virginia and the Eastern Riba, and used by four million.
Recognized by the American Society of Civil Engineers as one of the “ Seven Wonders of Modern World Engineering ” shortly after opening in 1964 as a two-lane crossing, Pont-Tunnel surface roads were expanded to four lanes in 1999 with the addition of $ 250 million from parallel bridges. The Tax District of the Bridge of the Bay of Chesapeake, a political subdivision exempt from the Commonwealth of Virginia that operates as a business entity, has been developing a tunnel parallel to decade shoes for more than a decade to address the problems of traffic congestion caused by the limited vertical and horizontal authorizations of the existing tube, which restricts the passage of vehicles, which of size.
The project team is currently installing the tunnel ballast, the compacted concrete and the mechanic/electricity of the tunnel entrance in the hope of completing the project in 2028.
Photo courtesy of Chesapeake Bay Tunnel or CBBT.
From the beginning of the construction on what was originally a five -year project in 2017, Chesapeake Tunnel Joint Venture (CTJV) – a design building equipment formed by Dragados USA and Schiavone Construction Co., with Hatch Mott MacDonald as the main designer: he has found numerous challenges, particularly massive granite boil boils.
And only three months after starting his length mile trip in February 2023, Chessie struck what was later determined to be a large boat, made in England at the turn of the 20th century. While the mechanical and traction systems of the machine were understood, the need to replace 48 wear plates and 389 of the 442 tools of the cutting head was added almost another year to the project.
Once it was restarted earlier this last year, CBBT officials say that Chessie 43.5 feet-day. Cutterhead had an average of 50 feet a day on a route more than 50 feet under the sea floor. In total, the TBM eliminated approximately 500,000 cenes of soil and installed about 10,000 concrete segments, each with a weight of 10 tons.
According to the CBBT infrastructure’s executive director, Michael Crist, CTJV has lifted the coat of arms and head of Chessie from the receiving grave, with the removal of the remaining loungers at the end of May. Currently installed tunnel ballast, compacted and mechanical/electric concrete from the entrance of the tunnel. The completion of the project is scheduled for 2028.
As the CBBT did not expect expansion to generate new substantial revenue, the Thimble Shoals parallel tunnel has not had the urgency of programming other toll projects. However, the cost of Christ’s estimated project is about $ 100 million higher than the granting of the CTJV originally announced construction contract of $ 757 million. CBBT is currently not planning to expand the Chesapeake Canal tunnel at the northern end of the complex.
Christ says that having two major TBM projects in sight of each other has provided many lessons learned for both teams.
“The owners, engineers and contractors working on the project have shared ideas, teams and staff from time to time,” he says.
Ryan Banas, director of the VDOT construction manager, HNTB Corp., agrees, adding that the fact that Herrenknecht built both Chessie and Mary has brought experience worldwide to the two projects.
“There has been a great synergy,” he says.
