PROJECT | CHINA - DALIANGSHAN NO 1 HIGHWAY TUNNEL
Above: The new expressway passes through the mountainous region of Sichuan Province
Project Director Lan is also Chairman of the Sichuan
Lexi Expressway Company, part of the huge Shudao Group of China that is ranked 389 on the Fortune 500 list of largest companies in the world. As a subsidiary of Shudao, the Lexi Expressway Company is responsible for construction, operation and maintenance management of the Lexi Expressway which will be part of a network of existing expressways totalling some 9,800km in Sichuan. Other parts of the Shudao Group have built more
than 10,000km of expressways, 7,500km of rail, 3,000 bridges, 200 long tunnels, 19 hydropower projects and additional solar and wind power projects, and have worked abroad in 30 countries.
CONSTRUCTION CHOICES Daliangshan No 1 tunnel is the longest highway tunnel currently in south west China and crosses two well defined seismic fault lines that would undoubtedly
present extremely adverse geological conditions. Hazards to the project were heightened by the fact that the alignment runs under a national reserve with only one intermediate adit permitted, and there excluded the possibility of vertical boreholes to investigate the tunnel’s overburden of a maximum 2,080m. The mountainous terrain is a challenge. At present,
to drive from one end of the tunnel to the other on the local roads takes more than an hour; the trip will take only 15 minutes through the tunnel when it opens. The limitation of only one permitted intermediate
adit, at about mid-point along the 15km-long alignment, influenced several aspects of decision-making on construction, not least the choice to build the pilot. The 1.5km-long adit with a grade of 12.9% (called
an inclined shaft in China) was advanced from a point between the two separate parts of the environmental nature reserve and into a suspected karstic zone of limestone. As anticipated, it connected with a large
Above: Plan of the new Daliangshan No 1 expressway tunnel beneath the Mamize Nature Reserve and a high overburden of more than 2,000m
30 | September 2024
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