Tunnels and Underground Excavations History, Methods, Uses, Facts Britannica

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Contents
descriptio
ARTICLE
Introduction
collections
MEDIA
History
Ancient tunnels
From the Middle Ages to the

present
Canal and railroad tunnels
Subaqueous tunnels
Machine-mined tunnels
Tunneling techniques
Basic tunneling system
Geologic investigation
Excavation and materials handling
Ground support
Environmental control
Modern soft-ground tunneling

Settlement damage and lost ground
Hand-mined tunnels
Shield tunnels
Water control
Soft-ground moles
Pipe jacking
Modern rock tunneling

Nature of the rock mass
Conventional blasting
Rock support
https://www.britannica.com/technology/tunnel/Future-trends-in-underground-construction#ref72478[10/20/2019 1:48:15 PM]

tunnels and underground excavations | History, Methods, Uses, & Facts | Britannica.com
Concrete lining
Rock bolts
Shotcrete
Preserving rock strength
Water inflows
Heavy ground
Unlined tunnels
Underground excavations and

structures
Rock chambers
Rock-mechanics investigation
Chamber excavation and support
Sound-wall blasting
Shafts
Shaft sinking and drilling
Shaft raising
Immersed-tube tunnels
Development of method
Modern practice
Future trends in underground

construction
Environmental and economic
factors
Improvement of surface environment
Scope of the tunneling market
Potential applications
Improved technology
Tunnels and underground excavations

ENGINEERING

WRITTEN BY: Kenneth S. Lane

See Article History
Tunnels and underground excavations, horizontal underground passageway produced by excavation or

occasionally by nature’s action in dissolving a soluble rock, such as limestone. A vertical opening is usually called
a shaft . Tunnels have many uses: for mining ores, for transportation—including road vehicles, trains, subways,
and canals—and for conducting water and sewage. Underground chambers, often associated with a complex of
connecting tunnels and shafts, increasingly are being used for such things as underground hydroelectric-power
plants, ore-processing plants, pumping stations, vehicle parking, storage of oil and water, water-treatment plants,
warehouses, and light manufacturing; also command centres and other special military needs.
True tunnels and chambers are excavated from the inside—with the overlying material left in place—and then
lined as necessary to support the adjacent ground. A hillside tunnel entrance is called a portal ; tunnels may also
be started from the bottom of a vertical shaft or from the end of a horizontal tunnel driven principally for
construction access and called an adit . So-called cut-and-cover tunnels (more correctly called conduits ) are built
by excavating from the surface, constructing the structure, and then covering with backfill. Tunnels underwater are
now commonly built by the use of an immersed tube : long, prefabricated tube sections are floated to the site, sunk
in a prepared trench, and covered with backfill. For all underground work, difficulties increase with the size of the
opening and are greatly dependent upon weaknesses of the natural ground and the extent of the water inflow.
History
Ancient tunnels
It is probable that the first tunneling was done by prehistoric people seeking to enlarge their caves. All major
ancient civilizations developed tunneling methods. In Babylonia , tunnels were used extensively for irrigation; and
a brick-lined pedestrian passage some 3,000 feet (900 metres) long was built about 2180 to 2160 BC under the
Euphrates River to connect the royal palace with the temple. Construction was accomplished by diverting the river
during the dry season. The Egyptians developed techniques for cutting soft rocks with copper saws and hollow
reed drills, both surrounded by an abrasive, a technique probably used first for quarrying stone blocks and later in
excavating temple rooms inside rock cliffs. Abu Simbel Temple on the Nile, for instance, was built in sandstone
about 1250 BC for Ramses II (in the 1960s it was cut apart and moved to higher ground for preservation before
flooding from the Aswān High Dam). Even more elaborate temples were later excavated within solid rock in
Ethiopia and India.
The Greeks and Romans both made extensive use of tunnels: to reclaim marshes by drainage and for water

aqueducts, such as the 6th-century-BC Greek water tunnel on the isle of Samos driven some 3,400 feet through
limestone with a cross section about 6 feet square. Perhaps the largest tunnel in ancient times was a 4,800-foot-
long, 25-foot-wide, 30-foot-high road tunnel (the Pausilippo) between Naples and Pozzuoli, executed in 36 BC. By
that time surveying methods (commonly by string line and plumb bobs) had been introduced, and tunnels were
advanced from a succession of closely spaced shafts to provide ventilation. To save the need for a lining, most
ancient tunnels were located in reasonably strong rock, which was broken off (spalled) by so-called fire
quenching, a method involving heating the rock with fire and suddenly cooling it by dousing with water.
Ventilation methods were primitive, often limited to waving a canvas at the mouth of the shaft, and most tunnels
claimed the lives of hundreds or even thousands of the slaves used as workers. In AD 41 the Romans used some
30,000 men for 10 years to push a 3.5-mile (6-kilometre) tunnel to drain Lacus Fucinus . They worked from shafts
120 feet apart and up to 400 feet deep. Far more attention was paid to ventilation and safety measures when
workers were freemen, as shown by archaeological diggings at Hallstatt , Austria, where salt-mine tunnels have
been worked since 2500 BC.
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From the Middle Ages to the present
Canal and railroad tunnels
Because the limited tunneling in the Middle Ages was principally for mining and military engineering , the next
major advance was to meet Europe’s growing transportation needs in the 17th century. The first of many major
canal tunnels was the Canal du Midi (also known as Languedoc) tunnel in France , built in 1666–81 by Pierre
Riquet as part of the first canal linking the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. With a length of 515 feet and a cross
section of 22 by 27 feet, it involved what was probably the first major use of explosives in public-works
tunneling, gunpowder placed in holes drilled by handheld iron drills. A notable canal tunnel in England was the
Bridgewater Canal Tunnel, built in 1761 by James Brindley to carry coal to Manchester from the Worsley mine.
Many more canal tunnels were dug in Europe and North America in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Though the
canals fell into disuse with the introduction of railroads about 1830, the new form of transport produced a huge
increase in tunneling, which continued for nearly 100 years as railroads expanded over the world. Much pioneer
railroad tunneling developed in England. A 3.5-mile tunnel (the Woodhead) of the Manchester-Sheffield Railroad
(1839–45) was driven from five shafts up to 600 feet deep. In the United States , the first railroad tunnel was a 701-
foot construction on the Allegheny Portage Railroad . Built in 1831–33, it was a combination of canal and railroad

systems, carrying canal barges over a summit. Though plans for a transport link from Boston to the Hudson River
had first called for a canal tunnel to pass under the Berkshire Mountains, by 1855, when the Hoosac Tunnel was
started, railroads had already established their worth, and the plans were changed to a double-track railroad bore
24 by 22 feet and 4.5 miles long. Initial estimates contemplated completion in 3 years; 21 were actually required,
partly because the rock proved too hard for either hand drilling or a primitive power saw. When the state of
Massachusetts finally took over the project, it completed it in 1876 at five times the originally estimated cost.
Despite frustrations, the Hoosac Tunnel contributed notable advances in tunneling, including one of the first uses
of dynamite , the first use of electric firing of explosives, and the introduction of power drills, initially steam and
later air, from which there ultimately developed a compressed-air industry.
Simultaneously, more spectacular railroad tunnels were being started through the Alps. The first of these, the
Mont Cenis Tunnel (also known as Fréjus), required 14 years (1857–71) to complete its 8.5-mile length. Its
engineer, Germain Sommeiller , introduced many pioneering techniques, including rail-mounted drill carriages,
hydraulic ram air compressors, and construction camps for workers complete with dormitories, family housing,
schools, hospitals, a recreation building, and repair shops. Sommeiller also designed an air drill that eventually
made it possible to move the tunnel ahead at the rate of 15 feet per day and was used in several later European
tunnels until replaced by more durable drills developed in the United States by Simon Ingersoll and others on the
Hoosac Tunnel. As this long tunnel was driven from two headings separated by 7.5 miles of mountainous terrain,
surveying techniques had to be refined. Ventilation became a major problem, which was solved by the use of
forced air from water-powered fans and a horizontal diaphragm at mid-height, forming an exhaust duct at top of
the tunnel. Mont Cenis was soon followed by other notable Alpine railroad tunnels: the 9-mile St. Gotthard (1872–
82), which introduced compressed-air locomotives and suffered major problems with water inflow, weak rock,
and bankrupt contractors; the 12-mile Simplon (1898–1906); and the 9-mile Lötschberg (1906–11), on a
northern continuation of the Simplon railroad line.
Nearly 7,000 feet below the mountain crest, Simplon encountered major problems from highly stressed rock flying
off the walls in rock bursts; high pressure in weak schists and gypsum, requiring 10-foot-thick masonry lining to
resist swelling tendencies in local areas; and from high-temperature water (130° F [54° C]), which was partly
treated by spraying from cold springs. Driving Simplon as two parallel tunnels with frequent crosscut connections
considerably aided ventilation and drainage.
Lötschberg was the site of a major disaster in 1908. When one heading was passing under the Kander River
valley, a sudden inflow of water, gravel, and broken rock filled the tunnel for a length of 4,300 feet, burying the
entire crew of 25 men. Though a geologic panel had predicted that the tunnel here would be in solid bedrock far
below the bottom of the valley fill, subsequent investigation showed that bedrock lay at a depth of 940 feet, so that
at 590 feet the tunnel tapped the Kander River, allowing it and soil of the valley fill to pour into the tunnel,

creating a huge depression, or sink, at the surface. After this lesson in the need for improved geologic
investigation, the tunnel was rerouted about one mile (1.6 kilometres) upstream, where it successfully crossed the
Kander Valley in sound rock.
Most long-distance rock tunnels have encountered problems with water inflows. One of the most notorious was
the first Japanese Tanna Tunnel, driven through the Takiji Peak in the 1920s. The engineers and crews had to
cope with a long succession of extremely large inflows, the first of which killed 16 men and buried 17 others, who
were rescued after seven days of tunneling through the debris. Three years later another major inflow drowned
several workers. In the end, Japanese engineers hit on the expedient of digging a parallel drainage tunnel the entire
length of the main tunnel. In addition, they resorted to compressed-air tunneling with shield and air lock , a
technique almost unheard-of in mountain tunneling.
Subaqueous tunnels
Tunneling under rivers was considered impossible until the protective shield was developed in England by Marc
Brunel, a French émigré engineer. The first use of the shield, by Brunel and his son Isambard, was in 1825 on the
Wapping-Rotherhithe Tunnel through clay under the Thames River . The tunnel was of horseshoe section 22 1/4 by
37 1/2 feet and brick-lined. After several floodings from hitting sand pockets and a seven-year shutdown for
refinancing and building a second shield, the Brunels succeeded in completing the world’s first true subaqueous
tunnel in 1841, essentially nine years’ work for a 1,200-foot-long tunnel. In 1869 by reducing to a small size (8
feet) and by changing to a circular shield plus a lining of cast-iron segments, Peter W. Barlow and his field
engineer, James Henry Greathead , were able to complete a second Thames tunnel in only one year as a pedestrian
walkway from Tower Hill. In 1874, Greathead made the subaqueous technique really practical by refinements and
mechanization of the Brunel-Barlow shield and by adding compressed air pressure inside the tunnel to hold back
the outside water pressure. Compressed air alone was used to hold back the water in 1880 in a first attempt to
tunnel under New York’s Hudson River; major difficulties and the loss of 20 lives forced abandonment after only
1,600 feet had been excavated. The first major application of the shield-plus-compressed-air technique occurred in
1886 on the London subway with an 11-foot bore, where it accomplished the unheard-of record of seven miles of
tunneling without a single fatality. So thoroughly did Greathead develop his procedure that it was used
successfully for the next 75 years with no significant change. A modern Greathead shield illustrates his original
developments: miners working under a hood in individual small pockets that can be quickly closed against inflow;
shield propelled forward by jacks; permanent lining segments erected under protection of the shield tail; and the
whole tunnel pressurized to resist water inflow.
Once subaqueous tunneling became practical, many railroad and subway crossings were constructed with the
Greathead shield, and the technique later proved adaptable for the much larger tunnels required for automobiles. A

new problem, noxious gases from internal-combustion engines, was successfully solved by Clifford Holland for
the world’s first vehicular tunnel , completed in 1927 under the Hudson River and now bearing his name. Holland
and his chief engineer, Ole Singstad, solved the ventilation problem with huge-capacity fans in ventilating
buildings at each end, forcing air through a supply duct below the roadway, with an exhaust duct above the
ceiling. Such ventilation provisions significantly increased the tunnel size, requiring about a 30-foot diameter for a
two-lane vehicular tunnel.
Many similar vehicular tunnels were built by shield-and-compressed-air methods—including Lincoln and Queens
tunnels in New York City , Sumner and Callahan in Boston, and Mersey in Liverpool. Since 1950, however, most
subaqueous tunnelers preferred the immersed-tube method, in which long tube sections are prefabricated, towed to
the site, sunk in a previously dredged trench, connected to sections already in place, and then covered with
backfill. This basic procedure was first used in its present form on the Detroit River Railroad Tunnel between
Detroit and Windsor, Ontario (1906–10). A prime advantage is the avoidance of high costs and the risks of
operating a shield under high air pressure, since work inside the sunken tube is at atmospheric pressure (free air).
Machine-mined tunnels
Sporadic attempts to realize the tunnel engineer’s dream of a mechanical rotary excavator culminated in 1954 at
Oahe Dam on the Missouri River near Pierre, in South Dakota . With ground conditions being favourable (a readily
cuttable clay-shale), success resulted from a team effort: Jerome O. Ackerman as chief engineer, F.K. Mittry as
initial contractor, and James S. Robbins as builder of the first machine—the “Mittry Mole.” Later contracts
developed three other Oahe-type moles, so that all the various tunnels here were machine-mined—totaling eight
miles of 25- to 30-foot diameter. These were the first of the modern moles that since 1960 have been rapidly
adopted for many of the world’s tunnels as a means of increasing speeds from the previous range of 25 to 50 feet
per day to a range of several hundred feet per day. The Oahe mole was partly inspired by work on a pilot tunnel in
chalk started under the English Channel for which an air-powered rotary cutting arm, the Beaumont borer, had
been invented. A 1947 coal-mining version followed, and in 1949 a coal saw was used to cut a circumferential slot
in chalk for 33-foot-diameter tunnels at Fort Randall Dam in South Dakota. In 1962 a comparable breakthrough
for the more difficult excavation of vertical shafts was achieved in the American development of the mechanical
raise borer, profiting from earlier trials in Germany.

Tunnels and underground

excavations
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KEY PEOPLE
Robert Moses
Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel
Robert Stephenson
Herman Haupt
James Henry Greathead
Alfred Brandt
Germain Sommeiller
RELATED TOPICS
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Tunneling shield
Rock bolt
Caisson
Air lock
Immersed tube
Swedish robot
Mole
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Underground Excavations And Structures
Rock chambers
While chambers in 1971 were being excavated in rock to fulfill a wide variety of functions, the main stimulus to
their development had come from hydroelectric-power-plant requirements. Though the basic concept originated in
the United States, where the world’s first underground hydroplants were built in enlarged tunnels at Snoqualme
Falls near Seattle, Wash., in 1898 and at Fairfax Falls, Vt., in 1904, Swedish engineers developed the idea into
excavating large chambers to accommodate hydraulic machinery. After an initial trial in 1910–14 at the Porjus
Plant north of the Arctic Circle , many underground power plants were subsequently built by the Swedish State
Power Board. Swedish success soon popularized the idea through Europe and over the world, particularly to
Australia, Scotland, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, where several hundred underground hydroplants have been built
since 1950. Sweden, having a long experience with explosives and rock work, with generally favourable strong
rock, and with energetic research and development, has even been able to lower the costs for underground work to
approximate those for surface construction of such facilities as power plants, warehouses, pumping plants, oil-
storage tanks, and water-treatment plants. With costs in the United States being 5 to 10 times greater underground,
new construction of underground chambers was not significantly resumed there until 1958, when the Haas
underground hydroplant was built in California and the Norad underground air force command centre in
Colorado. By 1970 the United States had begun to adopt the Swedish concept and had completed three more
hydroplants with several more under construction or being planned.

READ MORE ON THIS TOPIC

railroad: Tunnels
Although very expensive, tunneling provides the most economical means for railroads to
traverse mountainous terrain, to gain access to the…
Favourably located, an underground hydroplant can have several advantages over a surface plant, including lower
costs, because certain plant elements are built more simply underground: less risk from avalanches, earthquakes,
and bombing; cheaper year-round construction and operation (in cold climates); and preservation of a scenic
environment—a dominant factor in Scotland’s tourist area and now receiving recognition worldwide. A typical
layout involves a complex assembly of tunnels, chambers, and shafts. The world’s largest underground
powerhouse, Churchill Falls in the Labrador wilderness of Canada, with a capacity of five million kilowatts, has
been under construction since 1967 at a total project cost of about $1 billion. By building a dam of modest height
well above the falls and by locating the powerhouse at 1,000 feet depth with a one-mile tunnel (the tailrace tunnel)
to discharge water from the turbines below downstream rapids, the designers have been able to develop a head
(water height) of 1,060 feet while at the same time preserving the scenic 250-foot-high waterfall, expected to be a
major tourist attraction once several hundred miles of wilderness-road improvement permits public access.
Openings here are of impressive size: machine hall (powerhouse proper), 81-foot span by 154 feet high by 972
feet long; surge chamber, 60 feet by 148 feet high by 763 feet; and two tailrace tunnels, 45 by 60 feet high.
Large rock chambers are economical only when the rock can essentially support itself through a durable ground
arch with the addition of only a modest amount of artificial support. Otherwise, major structural support for a large
opening in weak rock is very costly. The Norad project, for example, included an intersecting grid of chambers in
granite 45 by 60 feet high, supported by rock bolts except in one local area. Here, one of the chamber intersections
coincided with the intersection of two curving shear zones of fractured rock—a happening which added $3.5
million extra cost for a perforated concrete dome 100 feet in diameter to secure this local area. In some Italian and
Portuguese underground powerhouses, weak-rock areas have necessitated comparable costly lining. While
significant rock defects are more manageable in the usual 10- to 20-foot rock tunnel, the problem so increases with
increasing size of opening that the presence of extensive weak rock can easily place a large-chamber project
outside the range of economic practicality. Hence, geologic conditions are very carefully investigated for rock-
chamber projects, using many borings plus exploratory drifts to locate rock defects, with a three-dimensional
geologic model to aid in visualizing conditions. A chamber location is selected that offers the least risk of support
problems. This objective was largely attained in the granite gneiss at Churchill Falls, where the location and
chamber configuration were changed several times to avoid rock defects. Rock-chamber projects, furthermore,
rely heavily on the relatively new field of rock mechanics to evaluate the engineering properties of the rock mass,

in which exploratory drifts are particularly important in affording access for in-place field testing.
Rock-mechanics investigation
The young field of rock mechanics was beginning, early in the 1970s, to develop a rational basis of design for
projects in rock; much is already developed for projects in soil by the older field of soil mechanics . Initially, the
discipline had been stimulated by such complex projects as arch dams and underground chambers and then
increasingly with similar problems with tunnels, rock slopes, and building foundations. In treating the rock mass
with its defects as an engineering material, the science of rock mechanics utilizes numerous techniques such as
theoretical analysis, laboratory testing, field testing on-site, and instrumentation to monitor performance during
construction and operation. Since rock mechanics is a discipline in itself, only the most common field tests are
briefly outlined below to give some concept of its role in design, particularly for a rock-chamber project.
Geostress , which can be a significant factor in choice of chamber orientation, shape, and support design, is
usually determined in exploratory drifts. Two methods are common, although each is still in the development
stage. One is an “overcoring” method (developed in Sweden and South Africa) used for ranges up to about 100
feet out from the drift and employing a cylindrical instrument known as a borehole deformeter. A small hole is
drilled into the rock and the deformeter inserted. Diameter changes of the borehole are measured and recorded by
the deformeter as the geostress is relieved by overcoring (cutting a circular core around the small hole) with a six-
inch bit. Measurements at several depths in at least three borings at different orientations furnish the data needed
for computing the existing geostress. When measurement is desired only at the surface of the drift, the so-called
French flat-jack method is preferred. In this, a slot is cut at the surface, and its closure is measured as the geostress
is relieved by the slot. Next, a flat hydraulic jack is inserted in the rock. The jack pressure necessary to restore
closure of the slot (to the condition before its cutting) is considered to equal the original geostress. As these
methods require a long drift or shaft for access to the area of measurement, development is under way (particularly
in the United States) to extend the range of depth to a few thousand feet. Such will aid in comparing geostress at
alternate sites and hopefully avoid locations with high geostress, which has proved very troublesome in several
past chamber projects.
Shear strength of a joint, fault, or other rock defect is a controlling factor in appraising strength of the rock mass in
terms of its resistance to sliding along the defect. Although partly determinable in the laboratory, it is best
investigated in the field by a direct shear test at the work site. While this test has long been used for soil and soft
rock, its adaptation to hard rock is due largely to work performed in Portugal. Shear strength is important in all
problems of sliding; at Morrow Point Dam, in Colorado, for example, a large rock wedge between two faults
started to move into the underground powerhouse and was stabilized by large tendons anchored back in a drainage
tunnel plus strut action provided by the concrete structure that supported the generator machinery. The modulus of

deformation (that is, the stiffness of the rock) is significant in problems involving movement under stress and in
sharing of load between rock and structure, as in a tunnel lining, embedded steel penstock, or foundation of a dam
or heavy building. The simplest field test is the plate-jacking method, in which the rock in a test drift is loaded by
hydraulic jacks acting on a plate two to three feet in diameter. Larger areas can be tested either by radially loading
the internal surface of a test tunnel or by pressurizing a membrane-lined chamber.
Analysis methods in rock mechanics have helped in appraising stress conditions around openings—as at Churchill
Falls—to identify and then correct zones of tension and stress concentration. Related work with rock block models
is contributing to understanding the failure mechanism of the rock mass, notable work being under way in Austria,
Yugoslavia, and the United States.
Chamber excavation and support
Excavation for rock chambers generally starts with a horizontal tunnel at the top of the area to be excavated and
progresses down in steps. Rock is excavated by drilling and blasting, carried on simultaneously in several
headings. This procedure may give way, however, as moles gain in their ability to cut hard rock economically and
as a rock saw or other device is developed for squaring up the circular surface normally cut by the mole. High
geostress can be a real problem (causing inward movement of the chamber walls) unless handled by a careful
sequence of partial excavations designed to relieve it gradually.
Many of the earlier underground hydroplants were roofed with a concrete arch, often designed for a major load, as
in some Italian projects in weak rocks or where blast damage was considerable, as at a few projects in Scotland.
Since about 1960, however, most have relied solely on rock bolts for support (sometimes supplemented with
shotcrete). That such a light support has been widely successful can be attributed to careful investigation resulting
in locations with strong rock, employment of techniques to relieve high geostress, and controlled blasting to
preserve rock strength.
Sound-wall blasting
Sound-wall blasting is a technique, primarily developed in Sweden, that preserves the finished rock surfaces in
sound condition by careful design of the blasting charges to fit the rock conditions. In underground work, Swedish
practice has often produced remarkable results almost like rock sculpturing in which the excellent shaping and
preservation of the rock surfaces often permit omitting concrete lining at savings greater than the extra cost of the
engineered blasting. While Swedish success is due partly to the generally strong rock in that country, it is due even
more to energetic research and development programs to develop (1) theoretical methods for blasting design plus
field blast tests to determine pertinent rock properties, (2) special explosives for different rock conditions, and (3)

institutes for the training of specialized blasting engineers to apply these procedures in the field construction.
In the United States, sound-wall blasting has enjoyed only indifferent success underground. Reluctance of the
blasting industry to change from its customary empirical approach and the lack of specialized blasting engineers
trained in Swedish practices have led to a return to the more costly technique of mining an initial pilot bore to
afford stress relief, followed by blasting successively thinner slabs toward the free face of the pilot bore.
For excavation from the ground surface, the requirements of sound-wall blasting largely have been met by the
technique of presplitting, developed in the United States in the late 1950s. Basically, this technique consists of
creating a continuous crack (or presplit) at a desired finished excavation line by initially firing a line of closely
spaced, lightly loaded holes drilled there. Next, the interior rock mass is drilled and blasted by conventional
means. If a high horizontal geostress is present, it is important that it first be relieved (as by an initial cut a modest
distance from the presplit line); otherwise, the presplit crack is not likely to occur in the direction desired.
Stockton Dam, in Missouri, illustrates the benefit of presplitting. Here, vertical faces in dolomite up to 110 feet
were successfully presplit and promptly rock-bolted; this permitted a major reduction in thickness of the concrete
facing, resulting in a net saving of about $2.5 million.
Shafts
The mining industry has been the primary constructor of shafts, because at many locations these are essential for
access to ore, for ventilation, and for material transport. Depths of several thousand feet are common. In public-
works projects, such as sewer tunnels, shafts are usually only a few hundred feet deep and because of their high
cost are avoided in the design stage wherever practical. Shallower shafts find many uses, however, for penstocks
and access to underground hydroplants, for dropping aqueduct tunnels beneath rivers, for missile silos, and for
oil and liquefied-gas storage. Being essentially vertical tunnels, shafts involve the same problems of different
types of ground and water conditions but on an aggravated scale, since vertical transport makes the operation
slower, more costly, and even more congested than with horizontal tunneling. Except when there is a high
horizontal geostress in rock, the loading on a shaft support is generally less than for a tunnel. Inflowing water,
however, is far more dangerous during construction and generally intolerable during operation. Hence, most shafts
are concrete-lined and waterproofed, and the lining installation usually follows only a short distance behind
excavation. The shape is usually circular, although, before current mechanized excavation methods, mining shafts
were frequently rectangular. Shafts may be sunk from the surface (or drilled in smaller sizes), or, if an existing
tunnel provides access, they may be raised from below.
Shaft sinking and drilling

Mining downward, generally from the surface, although occasionally from an underground chamber, is called
shaft sinking. In soil, shallow shafts are frequently supported with interlocking steel sheetpiling held by ring
beams (circular rib sets); or a concrete caisson may be built on the surface and sunk by excavating inside as
weight is added by extending its walls. More recently, large-diameter shallow shafts have been constructed by the
“slurry trench method,” in which a circular trench is excavated while filled with a heavy liquid (usually bentonite
slurry), which supports its walls until it is finally displaced by filling the trench with concrete. For greater depth in
soil, another method involves freezing a ring of soil around the shaft. In this method, a ring of closely spaced
freezing holes is drilled outside the shaft. A refrigerated brine is circulated in double-wall pipes in the holes to
freeze the soil before starting the shaft excavation. It is then kept frozen until the shaft is completed and lined with
concrete. This freezing method was developed in Germany and the Netherlands, where it was used successfully to
sink shafts through nearly 2,000 feet of alluvial soil to reach coal beds in the underlying rock. It has also been
applied under similar conditions in Britain, Poland, and Belgium. Occasionally, the freezing technique has been
used in soft rock to solidify a deep aquifer (layer of water-bearing rock). Because of the long time required for
drilling the freezing holes and for freezing the ground (18 to 24 months for some deep shafts), the freezing method
has not been popular on public-works projects except as a last resort, although it has been used in New York City
for shallow shafts through soil to gain access for deep-water tunnels.
More efficient methods for sinking deep shafts in rock were developed in South African gold- mining operations,
in which shafts 5,000 to 8,000 feet deep are common and are generally 20 to 30 feet in diameter. South African
procedure has produced progress of about 30 feet per day by utilizing a sinking stage of multiple platforms, which
permits concurrent excavation and concrete lining. Excavation is by drilling and blasting with muck loaded into
large buckets, with larger shafts operating four buckets alternately in hoisting wells extending through the
platforms. Grouting is carried a few hundred feet ahead to seal out water. Best progress is achieved when the rock
is pregrouted from two or three holes drilled from the surface before the shaft is started. Since the shallower shafts
on public-works projects cannot justify the investment in the large plant needed to operate a sinking stage, their
progress in rock is much slower—in the range of 5 to 10 feet per day.
Occasionally, shafts have been sunk through soil by drilling methods. The technique was first used in British
practice in 1930 and was subsequently further refined in the Netherlands and Germany. The procedure involves
first advancing a pilot hole, then reaming in several stages of enlargement to final diameter, while the walls of the
hole are supported by a heavy liquid (called drilling mud ), with circulation of the mud serving to remove the
cuttings. Then a double-wall steel casing is sunk by displacing the drilling mud, followed by injecting concrete
outside the casing and within the annular space between its double walls. One use of this technique was in the 25-
foot-diameter Statemine shaft in the Netherlands, 1,500 feet deep through soil that required about three and one-
half years before completion in 1959. For the 1962 construction of some 200 missile shafts in Wyoming in soft
rock (clay shale and friable sandstone), a giant auger proved effective for sinking these 65-foot-deep, 15-foot-

diameter shafts, generally at the rate of two to three days per shaft. Perhaps the largest drilled shaft is one in the
Soviet Union: 2,674 feet deep, which was enlarged in four stages of reaming to a final diameter of 28.7 feet,
progressing at a reported rate of 15 feet per day.
More dramatic has been the adaptation in the United States of oil-well-drilling methods in a technique called big-
hole drilling, used for constructing small shafts in the diameter range of three to six feet. Big-hole drilling was
developed for deep emplacement in underground testing of nuclear devices, with more than 150 such big holes
drilled in the 1960s up to 5,000 feet deep in Nevada in rocks ranging from soft tuff to granite. In big-hole drilling
the hole is made in one pass only with an array of roller-bit cutters that are pressed against the rock by the weight
of an assembly of lead-filled drill collars, sometimes totaling 300,000 pounds. The drill rig must be huge in size to
handle such loads. The greatest impediment controlling progress has been the removal of drill cuttings, where an
air lift is showing promise.
Shaft raising
Handling cuttings is simplified when the shaft can be raised from an existing tunnel, since the cuttings then merely
fall to the tunnel, where they are easily loaded into mine cars or trucks. This advantage has long been recognized
in mining; where once an initial shaft has been sunk to provide access to and an opportunity for horizontal tunnels,
most subsequent shafts are then raised from these tunnels, often by upward mining with men working from a cage
hung from a cable through a small pilot hole drilled downward from above. In 1957 this procedure was improved
by Swedish development of the raise climber, whose working cage climbs a rail fastened to the shaft wall and
extends backward into the horizontal access tunnel into which the cage is retracted during a blast. Simultaneously
in the 1950s Germans began experimenting with several mechanized reamers, including a motor-cutter unit pulled
upward by a cable in a previously down-drilled pilot hole. A more significant step toward mechanized shaft
raising occurred in 1962 when American mole manufacturers developed a device called a raise borer, in which the
cutting head is rotated and pulled upward by a drill shaft in a down-drilled pilot hole, with the power unit being
located at top of the pilot hole. The capacity of this type of borer (or upward reamer) generally ranges from 3–8-
foot diameters in lifts up to 1,000 feet with progress ranging up to 300 feet per day. Furthermore, available cutters
when operating on raise borers can cut through rock often almost twice as hard as rock moles can deal with. For
larger shafts, bigger-diameter reamers may be operated in an inverted position to ream downward, with the
cuttings sluiced to the access tunnel below. A 12-foot-diameter, 1,600-foot-deep vent shaft was completed by this
method in 1969 at the White Pine Copper Mine in Michigan. Starting from a 10-inch pilot hole, it was enlarged in
three downreaming passes.
The introduction of a workable raise borer in the 1960s represented a breakthrough in shaft construction, cutting
construction time to one-third and cost to less than one-half that for an upward-mined shaft. At the beginning of

the 1970s, the procedure was being widely adopted for shaft raising, and some projects had been specifically
designed to take advantage of this more efficient method. At a Northfield Mountain (Massachusetts) underground
hydroplant (completed in 1971), the previously common large surge chamber was replaced by a series of
horizontal tunnels at three levels, connected by vertical shafts. This layout permitted significant economy by the
use of jumbos already available from other tunnels of the project and the use of a raise borer for starting the shafts.
If very large shafts are involved, the raise borer is particularly useful in simplifying the so-called glory-hole
method, in which the main shaft is sunk by blasting; the muck is then dumped in the central glory hole, previously
constructed by a raise borer. The example is based on the construction of a 133-foot-diameter surge shaft above
the Angeles penstock tunnel near Los Angeles. The glory-hole technique was also used in 1944 in constructing a
series of 20 underground fuel-oil chambers in Hawaii, working from access tunnels driven initially at both top and
bottom of the chambers and later used to house oil and vent piping. The advent of the raise borer should now make
this and similar construction more economically attractive. Recently, some deep sewer projects have been
redesigned to utilize the raise borer for shaft connections.
Immersed-tube tunnels
Development of method
The immersed-tube, or sunken-tube, method, used principally for underwater crossings, involves prefabricating
long tube sections, floating them to the site, sinking each in a previously dredged trench, and then covering with
backfill. While more correctly classified as a subaqueous adaptation of the dry-land cut-and-cover procedure often
used for subways, the immersed-tube method warrants inclusion as a tunneling technique because it is becoming a
preferred alternate to the older method of constructing a subaqueous tunnel under compressed air with a Greathead
shield. A major advantage is that, once the new section has been connected, interior work is conducted in free air,
thus avoiding the high cost and major risk of operating a large shield under high air pressure. Furthermore, the
immersed-tube method is usable in water deeper than is possible with the shield method, which essentially is
restricted to less than 100 feet of water by the maximum air pressure at which workers can safely work.
The procedure was first developed by an American engineer, W.J. Wilgus , for the construction (1906–10) of the
Detroit River twin-tube railroad tunnel between Detroit, Mich., and Windsor, Ont., where it was successfully used
for the 2,665-foot river-crossing portion. A structural assembly of steel tubes was prefabricated in 262-foot-long
sections with both ends temporarily bulkheaded or closed. Each section was then towed out and sunk in 60 to 80
feet of water, onto a grillage of I-beams in sand at the bottom of a trench previously dredged in the river-bottom
clay. After being connected to the previous section by locking pins driven by a diver, the section was weighted
down by surrounding it with concrete. Next, after removal of the temporary bulkheads at the just-completed
connection, the newly placed section was pumped out, permitting completion of an interior concrete lining in free

air. With subsequent refinements these basic principles still form the basis of the immersed-tube method.
After use on a four-tube New York City subway crossing under the Harlem River in 1912–14, the method was
tried for a vehicular tunnel in the 1925–28 construction of the 3,545-foot-long, 37-foot-diameter Posey tunnel at
Oakland in California. Because these and other experiences have indicated that the problems encountered in
building large vehicular tunnels could be better handled by the immersed-tube method, it has been preferred for
subaqueous vehicular tunnels since about 1940. While shield tunneling continued in a transition period (1940–50),
subsequently nearly all of the world’s large vehicular tunnels have been constructed by the immersed-tube
method, including such notable examples as the Bankhead tunnel at Mobile, Ala.; two Chesapeake Bay tunnels;
the Fraser River tunnel at Vancouver, B.C.; the Maas River tunnel in the Netherlands; Denmark’s Limfjord tunnel;
Sweden’s Tingstad tunnel; and the Hong Kong Cross Harbor tunnel.
Modern practice
The world’s longest and deepest application to date is the twin-tube subway crossing of San Francisco Bay,
constructed between 1966 and 1971 with a length of 3.6 miles in a maximum water depth of 135 feet. The 330-
foot-long, 48-foot-wide sections were constructed of steel plate and launched by shipbuilding procedures. Each
section also had temporary end bulkheads and upper pockets for gravel ballast placed during sinking. After
placement of the interior concrete lining at a fitting-out dock , each section was towed to the site and sunk in a
trench previously dredged in the mud in the bottom of the bay. With diver guidance, the initial connection was
accomplished by hydraulic-jack-powered couplers, similar to those that automatically join railroad cars. By
relieving the water pressure within the short compartment between bulkheads at the new joint, the water pressure
acting on the forward end of the new section provided a huge force that pushed it into intimate contact with the
previously laid tube, compressing the rubber gaskets to provide a watertight seal. Following this, the temporary
bulkheads were removed on each side of the new joint and interior concrete placed across the connection.
Most applications of the immersed-tube procedure outside the United States have been by a Danish engineer-
constructor firm, Christiani and Nielsen, starting in 1938 with a three-tube highway crossing of the Maas River in
Rotterdam. While following American technique in essence, European engineers have developed a number of
innovations , including prestressed concrete in lieu of a steel structure (often consisting of a number of short
sections tied together with prestressed tendons to form a single section 300 feet in length); the use of butyl rubber
as the waterproofing membrane; and initial support on temporary piles while a sand fill is jetted beneath. An
alternate to the last approach has been used in a Swedish experiment on the Tingstad tunnel, in which the precast
sections were supported on water-filled nylon sacks and the water later replaced by grout injected into the sacks to
form the permanent support. Also, the cross section has been greatly enlarged—the 1969 Schelde River tunnel in
Antwerp, Belg., used precast sections 328 feet long by 33 feet high by 157 feet wide. This unusually large width

accommodates two highway tubes of three lanes each, one two-track railroad tube, and one bicycle tube.
Particularly unusual was a 1963 use of the immersed-tube technique in subway construction in Rotterdam.
Trenches were dug or, in some cases, made out of abandoned canals and filled with water. The tube sections were
then floated into position. This technique had been first tried in 1952 for a land approach to the immersed-tube
Elizabeth tunnel in Norfolk, Va.; in low-elevation ground with the water table near the surface, it permits a
considerable saving in bracing of the trench because keeping the trench filled eliminates the need for resisting
external water pressure.
Thus, the immersed-tube method has become a frequent choice for subaqueous crossings, although some locations
pose problems of interference with intensive navigation traffic or the possibility of displacement by severe storms
(one tube section of the Chesapeake Bay tunnel was moved out of its trench by a severe storm during
construction). The method is being actively considered for many of the world’s most difficult underwater
crossings, including the long-discussed English Channel Project.
Future Trends In Underground Construction
Environmental and economic factors
Improvement of surface environment
Unexpectedly rapid increases in urbanization throughout the world, especially since World War II , have brought
many problems, including congestion, air pollution, loss of scarce surface area for vehicular ways, and major
traffic disruption during their construction. Some cities relying principally on auto transport have even found that
nearly two-thirds of their central land area is devoted to vehicular service (freeways, streets, and parking
facilities), leaving only one-third of the surface space for productive or recreational use. During the past decade
there has been a growing awareness that this situation could be alleviated by underground placement of a large
number of facilities that do not need to be on the surface, such as rapid transit, parking, utilities, sewage and
water-treatment plants, fluid storage, warehouses, and light manufacturing. The overriding deterrent, however, has
been the greater cost underground—except in Sweden, where energetic research has reduced underground costs to
nearly equal the surface alternates. Hence planners have rarely dared to propose underground construction except

where the surface alternate was widely recognized as intolerable. Underground construction in urban areas has,
thus, generally been limited to situations without a viable surface alternate; as a result, additional increases in
surface construction have further aggravated the problem. At the same time, the low volume of underground
construction has provided insufficient incentive for the development of innovative technology .
A different approach for the United States was crystallized from a 1966–68 study by the National Academy of
Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, which proposed cost reduction from government-stimulated
technological research plus broader evaluation of social impacts. This would often show the underground alternate
as the better investment for society. A reduction of at least one-third in cost and one-half in construction time over
the next two decades was foreseen, and it was proposed that social and environmental costs be included in
estimates as well as construction costs. In 1970 an international meeting of some 20 countries was held in
Washington, D.C., under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (an assembly of NATO
countries), to share views and develop recommendations on government policy in this area. The conference
recommended that energetic stimulation of underground construction be adopted as national policy in each of the
20 countries represented and in effect visualized the underground as a largely undeveloped natural resource. This
resource, it was pointed out, could be used to expand urban areas downward to help preserve the upper
environment—for example, by tunnels for transport and inter-basin water transfer, for recovery of minerals
increasingly needed by the economy, and in developing currently unreachable resources under ocean areas
adjoining the continents. Such international consensus suggests that this is indeed a powerful concept ready for
acceptance.
Scope of the tunneling market
While informed people foresee a great increase in underground construction, numerical estimates are crude at best,
particularly since statistics have not been accumulated in the past for underground construction as a separate item
either in the public-works or the mining sectors. The 1970 conference mentioned above included a survey
suggesting an average annual volume in its 20 member countries of about $1 billion in public works for the 1960–
69 decade ($3 billion including mining). Estimates made at that time of a doubling of volume over the next decade
assumed the continuation of the current rate of technological improvement and recognized that the increase would
be far greater if stimulated by government support in an energetic research and development program to reduce
cost. All estimates were alike in forecasting a huge increase in underground construction during the following two
decades. Key factors affecting the actual increase are technological improvements reducing costs and an
increasing awareness on the part of society and public-works planners of the many potential applications for better
use of the underground.
Potential applications

Future applications are expected to range from expansion of existing uses to the introduction of entirely new
concepts. Several of these are considered below; many others are likely to emerge as innovative planners turn their
attention to utilizing the underground space. The largest increase is likely to be in rock tunneling: partly from the
nature of the projects and partly from the expectation that improved moles will make rock tunneling more
attractive than soil tunnels, with their usual requirement for continuous temporary support plus a permanent
concrete lining.
Deep rock tunnels for rapid transit between cities are beginning to receive very serious consideration. These might
include a 425-mile system to cover the nearly continuous urban area between Boston and Washington, D.C.,
probably with an entirely new type of conveyance at speeds of several hundred miles per hour. A forerunner
system is the New Tōkaidō Line in Japan, which uses standard railroad equipment at about 150 miles per hour.
Highway tunnels are beginning to increase in number as well. Urban highway tunnels conceivably may offer a
convenient opportunity to reduce pollution by treating the exhaust air that has already been collected by the
ventilating system essential for longer vehicular tunnels.
There is increasing recognition that many more interbasin water transfers will be needed, involving systems of
tunnels and canals. Notable projects include the California Aqueduct , which transfers water from the northern
mountains some 450 miles to the semiarid Los Angeles area; the Orange-Fish Project in South Africa , which
includes a 50-mile tunnel; and studies for possible transfer of surplus Canadian water into the southwestern United
States. Drainage can also be a problem, as in the old lake bed area occupied by Mexico City, where current
expansion of the drainage system involves some 60 miles of tunnel.
Shallower tunnels for subways are bound to increase beyond those expansions undertaken in recent years in many
cities, including San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, Chicago, New York, London, Paris, Budapest,
Munich, and Mexico City . Multiple use is likely to receive further consideration as communication agencies begin
to show interest in adding space within the structures for the several types of utilities. Some merchants visualize
mechanized movement of pedestrians between stores. One notable example is Montreal ’s extensive assembly of
underground shopping malls, which interconnect most new downtown buildings as well as provide access to the
subway and commuter railroads—a project that has relieved the streets from pedestrian traffic, particularly during
severe weather. Another example involves utilization of space excavated above subway stations for parking
facilities, as on the Toronto subway and more recently on the Paris Métro, where the space above one of the
stations in the Champs-Élysées area provides seven levels of parking.
Subaqueous crossings are becoming more ambitious. The world’s longest railroad tunnel, for example, currently
under way in Japan, is the 34-mile Seikan undersea rock tunnel between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido; the

14.4-mile pilot tunnel, completed in 1983 after 19 years of work, was utilized as a proving ground for several new
types of moles. Of comparable scope is the more publicized projected English Channel tunnel for a rail connection
between France and England, using special cars for auto transport. Studies have concentrated on two alternatives:
twin mole-excavated tunnels in chalk plus a service tunnel or an immersed-tube structure providing comparable
space. The immersed-tube procedure has also been considered for a number of other difficult crossings—e.g.,
from Denmark to Sweden and from Sicily to Italy. Immersed tubes are likely to become more attractive with
improvement in methods for trench dredging in deeper water and for grading the trench bottom to support the tube
structure. The Japanese are experimenting with an underwater bulldozer , robot-manned and television-monitored.
One innovative proposal for supplying additional water to southern California visualizes the immersed-tube
method to construct a large pipeline for some 500 miles under the shallower ocean along the continental shelf .
Subaqueous tunneling also is likely to be involved as procedures are developed for utilizing the vast continental-
shelf areas of the world; concepts are already being studied for tunnels to service oil wells and for extensive
undersea mining such as has been pioneered in Britain and eastern Canada.
Both Norway and Sweden have reduced the direct costs of fluid storage by storing petroleum products in
underground chambers, thus eliminating the maintenance cost for frequent repainting of steel tanks in a surface
facility. Locating these chambers below the permanent water table (and below any existing wells) ensures that
seepage will be toward the chambers rather than outward; thus, the oil is prevented from leaking out of the
chamber, and the lining may be omitted. Further economies may result from orienting the chambers vertically to
take advantage of the raise borer and glory-hole techniques, previously mentioned. There are a number of
underground installations for the storage of highly compressed gas cooled to a liquid state; these may increase
once improved types of lining have been developed. Although the method involves only limited tunneling for
access, the United States Atomic Energy Commission has developed an ingenious method for disposal of nuclear
waste by injecting it into fissured rock within a cement grout so that hardening of the grout reconverts the nuclear
minerals into a stable rocklike state. Other disposal methods involve more tunneling, such as within salt, which
has particularly good ability for shielding against radiation.
A good example of an imaginative concept is Chicago ’s Underflow Tunnel and Reservoir Plan, which is intended
to alleviate both pollution and flooding. Like most older cities, Chicago has a combined sewer system that carries
both storm runoff and sanitary sewage during wet weather but only sanitary sewage during dry weather. The
city’s huge growth has so overtaxed older portions of the system that severe storms cause flooding in low areas.
While sewage treatment has essentially eliminated sewage pollution of Lake Michigan, making Chicago virtually
the only major city on the Great Lakes continuing wide recreational usage of its lake beaches, the treatment plants
generally are sized to handle only the dry-weather flow. Thus, overflow during major storms is discharged into
streams draining away from the lake as a mixture of sanitary sewage diluted by storm water. Conventional
solutions adopted in the past, such as adding a second pipe system to collect only the storm water, discharging it

into the streams, or adding plant capacity to treat all combined flow during severe storms, have proved
tremendously expensive. An early version of the plan included a temporary storage of excess water in large
underground caverns, which after each storm could be pumped out for gradual treatment by the existing sewage
plants. Inclusion of the surface reservoir makes practical the use of the diluted sewage in a pumped storage
hydroplant; in this type of facility the fluid is pumped up during off-peak-electric-power night periods, when
steam power is cheaply available, and then allowed to flow back to generate peak power when demand exceeds
economic capacity of the steam plants. A second multiple use is the opportunity to reduce present surface
quarrying for crushed stone aggregate by using the dolomitic limestone mined from the deep tunnels and
caverns.
The use of rock chambers for underground hydroplants seems certain to increase in most countries, particularly
those in which until recently surface plants have been favoured because of their apparently lower cost. Scotland
has been one of the first countries to recognize that extra construction cost can often be warranted to preserve the
scenic environment , also recognized by choice of an underground location for recent U.S. pump-storage plants—
Northfield Mt. in Massachusetts and Raccoon Mt. in Tennessee, plus others being planned. Sweden’s use of the
underground for plants treating sewage and water, for warehouses, and for light manufacturing is likely to find
further application. The relatively small annual temperature range in the underground has made it a desirable
environment for facilities requiring close atmospheric control. In the vicinity of Kansas City in Missouri, mined-
out space in underground limestone quarries is being used effectively for laboratory space, for dehumidified
storage of corrosion-sensitive equipment, and for refrigerated food storage, an application also favoured in
Sweden.
Similar environment factors plus the probability of less disturbance during earthquakes have made the
underground desirable for a number of scientific installations, including atomic accelerators, earthquake research,
nuclear research, and space telescopes. Since earthquake risk is a big factor in locating nuclear power plants, the
merits of an underground location are attracting interest.
Improved technology
Worldwide efforts are under way to accelerate improvements in the technology of underground construction and
are likely to be stimulated as a result of the 1970 OECD International Conference recommending improvement as
government policy. The endeavour involves specialists such as geologists, soil- and rock-mechanics engineers,
public-works designers, mining engineers, contractors, equipment and materials manufacturers, planners, and also
lawyers, who aid in the search for more equitable contractual methods to share the risks of unknown geology and
resulting extra costs. Many improvements and their early applications have been previously discussed; others are
briefly mentioned here, including several that have not yet moved from the research stage to the pilot, or trial,

stage. Projects in rock are emphasized, since the field of rock engineering is less developed than its older
counterpart, soils engineering.
Geologic prediction and evaluation are universally recognized as deserving a high priority for improvement. Since
ground and water conditions are controlling factors in choosing both the design and construction method
underground and seem destined to be even more so with greater use of moles, efforts are directed toward
improving boring information (as with borehole cameras), faster borings (the Japanese are trying to bore one to
three miles ahead of a tunneling mole), geophysical methods to estimate rock-mass properties, and techniques to
observe pattern of water flows. For evaluation, the new field of rock mechanics is concentrating on measuring
geostress and rock-mass properties, failure mechanics of jointed rock, and analytical methods for applying results
to design of underground openings.
For rock excavation, improved cutters are generally considered the key for expanding economic ability of moles
to include harder rock. Much effort is being devoted to improving current mechanical cutters, including technical
advances based upon space metallurgy, geometry of cutter shape and arrangement, mechanics of cutting action,
and research in presoftening rock. Concurrently, there is an intensive search for entirely new rock-cutting methods
(some nearing a pilot application), including high-pressure water jets, Russian water cannon (operated at high
pressures), electron beam , and flame jet (often combined with abrasive powder). Other methods under research
involve lasers and ultrasonics. Most of these have high power requirements and might increase ventilating needs
from an already overtaxed system. Though some of these novel methods will eventually reach the stage of
economic practicality, it is not possible to predict at present which ones will eventually succeed. Also needed is a
means for testing rock in terms of mole drillability plus correlation with mole performance in different rocks,
where promising work is under way at several locations.
A decided change in current materials-handling systems seems inevitable to keep up with fast-moving moles by
matching the mole’s rate of excavation and fragmentation sizing of the muck produced. Schemes now under study
include long belt conveyors, high-speed rail with completely new types of equipment, and both hydraulic and
pneumatic pipelines. Useful experience is being accumulated with pipeline transport of ore slurries, of coal, and
even of such bulky material as canned goods.
For ground support, rock-mechanics engineers are working toward replacing past empirical methods with a more
rational basis of design. One key factor is likely to be the tolerable deformation for mobilizing but not destroying
the strength of the rock mass. There is wide agreement that progress will best be aided by field-test sections at
prototype scale in selected ongoing projects. While several newer types of support have been discussed (rock
bolts, shotcrete, and precast-concrete elements), developments are under way toward entirely new types, including
lighter material plus yield-controllable types as a corollary to above tolerable deformation concept. For projects

using concrete lining, major changes seem inevitable to keep pace with fast-moving moles, probably including
some entirely new types of concretes. Current efforts include work with precast elements, plus research into
stronger and faster set materials which use resins and other polymers in lieu of portland cement .
Preservation of ground strength is beginning to win acceptance as vital for the safety of large rock chambers and
also often a means of cost saving in tunnels. For preserving strength of the rock mass around tunnels, a mole-cut
surface provides a solution. For large chambers, consideration is being given to cutting a peripheral slot with a
wire saw of the type used to quarry monument stone. Where chambers are blasted, engineered sound-wall
blasting has provided a solution in Sweden .
Ground strengthening by precementation with chemical grouts is a technique notably developed in France and
Britain through extensive research by specialized grouting firms. The world’s outstanding application at the Auber
Station of the Métro Express beneath the Place de L’Opéra traffic centre of Paris has a large chamber 130 feet
wide by 60 feet high by 750 feet long in chalky marl below an existing subway , at a depth of 120 feet, about 60
feet below water table. This was completed in 1970 without interrupting surface traffic and without underpinning
the many old masonry buildings above (including the historic National Opera Building), a truly courageous
undertaking made possible by surrounding the chamber with a pregrouted zone to seal out water and to precement
the overlying sand and gravel. Different types of chemical grout were successively injected (totaling about two
billion cubic feet), working from crown and side drifts; then the chamber was mined and supported both top and
bottom by prestressed arches of concrete elements. Similar procedure was also successful at the Étoile Station
adjacent to the Arc de Triomphe . While this technique of ground strengthening by grout solidification requires
highly skilled specialists, it is an instructive example of how a new technology is likely to make economically
possible future projects previously considered beyond engineering ability.
Kenneth S. Lane
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
railroad: Tunnels
Although very expensive, tunneling provides the most economical means for
railroads to traverse mountainous terrain, to gain access to the heart of a
crowded city, or, more recently in Japan and Europe, to project a railway across
a maritime strait below its seabed. Railroad…
canals and inland waterways: Bridges, aqueducts, and tunnels for

waterways

…and watersheds in small bricked tunnels through which vessels were propelled
by manual haulage, by poling, or by legging—that is, by crewmen lying on their
backs on the cabin and pushing with their feet against the tunnel roof. Later,
t l id d ith t th
explosive: Dynamite
Three tunnels stand out as benchmarks in the history of the use of explosives:
first is Mont Cenis, a 13-kilometre (8-mile) railway tunnel driven through the Alps
between France and Italy in 1857–71, much the largest construction job with
black powder up to that time; second…
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Simplon Tunnel
TUNNEL, ITALY-SWITZERLAND

WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

LAST UPDATED: Sep 27, 2019
See Article History
Simplon Tunnel, one of the longest railway tunnels in the world, about 12 1/2 miles (20 km) from Iselle, Italy, to
Brig, Switz., and one of history’s great engineering feats. The Simplon Pass was an important trade route between
northern and southern Europe from the 13th century. It was improved in the beginning of the 19th century by a
road constructed by Napoleon I. Following the successful completion of shorter Alpine tunnels, the Simplon was
undertaken in the 1890s by Alfred Brandt , head of the German engineering firm of Brandt, Brandau & Company,
and inventor of an efficient rock drill. Because of the great depth of the tunnel—more than a mile at its deepest
point under Monte Leone—and consequent high temperature, Brandt developed a new tunnelling technique. He
divided the tunnel into two separate galleries 55 feet (17 metres) apart. Thus, two pilot headings could be driven
simultaneously, with crosshatches providing ventilation and a circuit for work trains. Many serious problems were
overcome in the construction, beginning with the deflection of surveying instruments by the gravitational fields of
the mountains and including water inrushes of up to 13,000 gallons (49,270 litres) a minute. At one point a stretch
of fault rock riddled with springs was overcome only by the radical expedient of lining the pilot heading with 74
steel frames, each 20 inches (50 centimetres) thick, instead of conventional timbering. Temperatures of more than
120° F (49° C) were encountered.
Simplon Tunnel
Entrance to the Simplon Tunnel, Iselle, Italy.
Markus Schweiss

Brandt died long before completion of the first gallery, which was holed through in January 1905; the tunnel was
opened to traffic in 1906. Various problems, including the outbreak of World War I , postponed completion of the
second gallery until 1921 (opened to traffic in 1922).
This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen, Corrections Manager.
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
tunnels and underground excavations: Canal and railroad tunnels
…and bankrupt contractors; the 12-mile Simplon (1898–1906); and the 9-mile
Lötschberg (1906–11), on a northern continuation of the Simplon railroad line.…
tunnels and underground excavations: Water inflows
…1898 in work on the Simplon Tunnel and in 1969 on the Graton Tunnel in
Peru, where flow reached 60,000 gallons (230,000 litres) per minute. Another
technique is to depressurize ahead by drain holes (or small drainage drifts on
each side), an extreme example being the 1968 Japanese handling of…
Alfred Brandt
…the successful driving of the Simplon Tunnel, largest of the great Alpine tunnels.…
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· Channel Tunnel
· Seikan Tunnel
· Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
· Lincoln Tunnel
· Holland Tunnel
· Mont Blanc Tunnel
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· Cascade Tunnel
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Tunnels and Underground Excavations History, Methods, Uses, Facts Britannica

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tunnels and underground excavations | History, Methods, Uses, & Facts | Britannica.

From the Middle Ages to the

Excavation and materials handling

Modern soft-ground tunneling

Modern rock tunneling

https://www.britannica.com/technology/tunnel/Future-trends-in-underground-construction#ref72478[10/20/2019 1:48:15 PM]

Preserving rock strength

Underground excavations and

Chamber excavation and support

Future trends in underground

Scope of the tunneling market