Skip to main content

Building the Pfänder tunnes

The second tube of the Pfänder Tunnel, Bregenz, Austria, where the new main tunnel has been excavated using a tunnel boring machine (TBM), is being constructed by Alpine BeMo Tunnelling. Tubbings have been installed as the inner tunnel lining, and as part of concreting for the inner shell, the FQ 1 crosscut, suitable for vehicles, is being constructed using a tunnel formwork carriage designed and supplied by PERI.
April 11, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
The high proportion of system components provided a cost-effective solution for the short tunnel structure
The second tube of the Pfänder Tunnel, Bregenz, Austria, where the new main tunnel has been excavated using a tunnel boring machine (TBM), is being constructed by Alpine BeMo Tunnelling.

Tubbings have been installed as the inner tunnel lining, and as part of concreting for the inner shell, the FQ 1 crosscut, suitable for vehicles, is being constructed using a tunnel formwork carriage designed and supplied by 298 PERI.

The existing Pfänder Tunnel, commissioned some 30 years ago, cannot cope with the increase in the traffic volumes, so the parallel, two-lane tube is being constructed. Over 14 months, the almost-12m diameter TBM drilled 6,600m through the Pfänder Mountains to form the main tunnel, which was lined with precast segments.

In case of fire, 31 connecting passageways between the old and new tunnel tubes for evacuation purposes are planned. For the most important, the 43.1m long FQ 1 crosscut, PERI created a tailored formwork solution consisting mainly of rentable VARIOKIT system components. The other crosscuts will have shotcreted inner shells.

A total of seven round-shaped wall formwork elements were prefabricated by PERI and supplied just-in-time to the construction site, thus minimising assembly time. After only 1.5 weeks of on site assembly, the construction tea

started work on the segments, with standard lengths of 5.9m. After a short period of introduction, a three day cycle could be achieved for these sections. Construction of the last two 3.35m long segments required two days respectively.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Bridging the gap in African infrastructure
    December 20, 2013
    Leading formwork manufacturers have secured some impressive contracts in Africa, as the continent’s transport infrastructure continues to improve at a rapid pace. Meanwhile, other bridgework equipment companies are also seeing their products in demand in Africa, as well as North America and Australia.
  • Innovative formwork beats bridge design challenges
    February 14, 2012
    Companies are coming up with innovative formwork solutions to overcome "challenging" designs for bridges. Patrick Smith reports
  • Major Europe-Asia bridge connection in Turkey
    July 1, 2014
    The 3rd Bosporus Bridge and the Northern Marmara Motorway will improve transport links between Europe and Asia and cut chronic congestion in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city - Mike Woof reports Work is now well underway on the 3rd Bosporus Bridge and the Northern Marmara Motorway, providing a new link for Turkish city Istanbul and the region as a whole. This enormous bridge and highway project is breaking several records for Turkey in terms of scale, as well as setting a number of international records for e
  • Improving tunneling method selection
    December 11, 2015
    The tunnelling sector remains one of the most active segments of the construction industry worldwide, fuelling demand for equipment However, there have been issues with the efficiency of the selection process for the most suitable tunnelling method for a project in the past. With this in mind, the Italian hydraulic breaker manufacturer Indeco has been working on a new algorithm that allows a contractor to optimise the tunnelling method selection. The firm said that this system has been developed becau