Skip to main content

Liebherr's tunnelling twins

Contractor Marti Tunnelbau has carried out work on the A16 road construction project in the Swiss canton of Jura with help from its Liebherr LB28 and LB36 piling rigs.
February 13, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
A Swiss tunneling job was carried out with precision and productivity with help coming from two Liebherr piling rigs as well as other Liebherr machines
Contractor Marti Tunnelbau has carried out work on the A16 road construction project in the Swiss canton of Jura with help from its Liebherr LB28 and LB36 piling rigs.

The two 718 Liebherr drilling rigs were used to install a secant pile wall for slope and foundation pit reinforcement.

The 3.3km Tunnel de Choindez is being built between the border of Jura and Delémont to the east, and the link is due to open in 2016.

Both Liebherr units are working at the 300m-long northern entrance, while two Liebherr crawler cranes (an HS835 and an HS841) as well as a Liebherr R944 crawler excavator are being used for other work at the site.

The tunnel requires the installation of 20,000 linear metres of piles to form a secant drilled pile wall within 9 months. The 1,020 piles vary in length from 13-26m, with diameters of 1m. The soil on site consists of sandstone and marl layers. The machines have conventional Kelly-type shock absorbers with springs and hydraulic dampers to prevent damage to the material and to reduce noise emissions. Exchangeable drive adapters provide compatibility with other Kelly bar dimensions.

Due to their low operating weight of around 95tonnes for the LB28 and 115tonnes for the LB36 as well as the comparatively compact design, the machines were transported to the site quickly while set-up times were also fast. And due to the high performance of the LB rigs and the efficient project management, the job at the Courrendlin site was completed well ahead of the projected deadline.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Liebherr extends rough terrain crane range
    April 9, 2018
    Unveiled at ConExpo 2017, Liebherr has extended its mobile crane product range with an additional series of rough terrain cranes in the 90tonne and 100tonne classes. The new rough-terrain crane LRT 1090-2.1 is said to feature high performance, safety and comfort. The VarioBase (variable support base) developed by Liebherr, which allows each individual outrigger beam to be extended to optional lengths, is standard on the LRT cranes. The crane model is powered by a Cummins diesel engine which develops 194kW
  • Rebuilding roads in Italy
    February 16, 2024
    A fleet of Liebherr ADTs is helping with the construction of a major project at Lake Reschen in Northern Italy, close to the country’s borders with Austria and Switzerland.
  • Italian highway bridge and tunnel link
    June 20, 2022
    A project in Central Italy is seeing the construction of new tunnel stretches, a bridge and a viaduct. The work is being carried out on State Road 318 by BESIX in partnership with DONATI, close to Perugia in Umbria.
  • PERI helping to build world’s longest underwater tunnel
    April 4, 2013
    In China, PERI is playing a crucial role in the construction of the world’s longest underwater tunnel The 6km tunnel is part of a new 35km long road connection across the Pearl River bay in southern China, aiming to allow Hong Kong to grow both physically and economically with Macau and also Zhuhai on mainland China. In a huge field factory near the underwater tunnel site, two production lines are being used to produce a total of 33 tunnel elements. Each of the reinforced concrete tubes for the standard sec