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Construction
ArcelorMittal offers a variety of steel products for tunnel construction:
- a vast series of steel sheet piles which offer numerous advantages like faster execution time and reduced surface disruption
- a comprehensive collection of premium quality steel fibres for reinforced concrete solutions dedicated to the tunnelling industry, such as shotcrete and precast tunnel lining segments
- a wide range of structural steel sections and merchant bars available in standard and high strength grades (such as HISTAR®)
- an extensive offer of rebar and meshes to reinforce concrete structures
- a broad selection of steel tubes to combine with sheet piles in order to form building pits and cofferdam structures (e.g. for shafts)
With regard to tunnel equipment and finishing, ArcelorMittal steels can also respond to the severe tunnel environment in terms of durability and safety:
- For road and motorway tunnels, drivers’ visibility in all conditions is of paramount interest to ensure safety. Therefore, additional cladding is often erected to improve drivers’ comfort. When it comes to durability, aesthetics, and fire safety requirements, enamelled steels are considered to be the best in class solution. Another popular solution is Indaten® weathering steel, especially in countries like Italy where its patina blends with the landscape.
- In railway and underground tunnels, Magnelis® coated steel is an ideal material for cable trays to ensure a longer lifetime for equipment.
Tunnels
Tunnels are long, narrow, and enclosed underground passageways dug through the surrounding soil. Transportation, water, and utility tunnels are essential for a highly functional transport and infrastructure network.
Like bridges, transportation tunnels connect communities and reduce travel time, crossing through mountains or running below busy urban areas where aboveground space is scarce. Transportation tunnels include extensive networks of rapid transit tunnels and station, railway, road, and pedestrian tunnels.
Utility tunnels are mainly built for electrical power and telecommunication lines or water, oil and gas pipes, and sewers.
Underpasses are similar structures to tunnels, but they are usually shorter. Underpasses improve traffic flow at busy junctions at street level and are generally designed during road and traffic restructuring, especially at crossroads. This is why rapid implementation is of the utmost importance for the construction of underpasses.
Useful information
MoreTunnel construction
Tunnel construction is preceded by a thorough geotechnical investigation of the soil conditions in order to choose the appropriate construction method. The selected method also depends on numerous other factors, such as the type of tunnel to be built, groundwater conditions, length, depth, cross section shape, diameter, environmental considerations, etc.
Tunnels with ArcelorMittal steel around the globe
ArcelorMittal has contributed to the construction of tunnels all over the world. Some examples include: Doha Metro (Qatar), Crossrail London (UK), Madrid Metro and high-speed rail tunnels (Spain), Dubai Metro (UAE), Helsinki Metro (Finland), Gotthard Base Tunnel (Switzerland), an RTN tunnel in Munich (Germany), and Ma On Shan tunnel (Hong Kong).