INSIGHT | DATA, DIGITAL & BIM
BIM FOR CONVENTIONAL AND TBM TUNNELLING
Guidance on how Building Information Modelling (BIM) can be used for mechanised and conventional tunnelling was published last year by ITA-AITES. Overview by T&T.
A guide aiming to support the adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in the heavy civils works of bored and conventional tunnelling projects is available from the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA-AITES). It is aimed at both engineers and infrastructure asset owners. Recommendations are offered to assess alongside available best practices. “This guideline is not intended
to contest Employer’s Information Requirements or local best practice,” it says, but to “alleviate ambiguity” concerning such or help their development. The report – ‘BIM in Tunnelling
– Guideline for mechanised and conventional tunnels’ – draws on current industry practice
but only on the subset of civil engineering works. Above:
ITA report on use of BIM for bored tunnels and conventional tunnelling. All images courtesy of ITA.
While it notes that using BIM on tunnel projects is not different conceptually from the other fields of engineering that help to develop major infrastructure projects, they are not covered by the guide. To provide focus, there is no need to cover more than heavy civils when seeking to focus on tunnels, it contends, as more effective information management – supported by BIM methodology and systems – serves across all disciplines; the differences are in the particulars to each, such as “logging or tracking TBM process data”, and so merit tight focus. Of particular importance are geotechnical, geological
or ground data for tunnelling projects, it adds. They need to be carefully included into the BIM systems to be used. As such, they are discussed in the guide, along with machine data, monitoring data, etc. The guide covers two major types of tunnelling works
– TBM and conventional – as BIM models for each “do not diverge significantly in concept”. However, they do differ in the lining layer structure: conventional tunnels generally have initial and final support concepts, respectively; bored tunnels have the segmental tunnel as the only support concept, most times. Additionally, excavation for conventional tunnelling is “less standardised and more bespoke for a given geology” than in a bored tunnel, says the guide. The decisions on how to model for both excavation and lining concepts drive the BIM approach for
38 | September 2026
conventional tunnelling, which needs to be developed “in a separate manner” to that for TBM-driven tunnels, it adds. The guide was ITA-AITES Working Group 22’s (WG22)
second publication focused on BIM in that year, the other focusing on helping the tunnelling industry deliver better sustainability performance for life cycle management (T&T June 2026). The other guide is ‘Tunnelling information modelling’ – recommended by the WG to help early sustainability investigations – which it says can help design decision-making without the need to wait for finalised tunnel geometry.
STRUCTURE OF GUIDE The format of the BIM guideline is as a journal paper, as with the other BIM report. Before publication by the ITA, both were first carried in Tunneling and Underground Space Technology (TUST); their presentation style and structure are repeated as per the ITA publications. The BIM publications are not structured in the accessible
style of reports, and as such would typically have a foreword, contents, chapters and perhaps – and ideally – an index. On the latter, despite the practical and long-term benefits, few reports will finish with an index. However, and helpfully in the case of each, the guides
have lists of references, and appendices are also provided to round off their briefings. To begin the proceedings, though, and in the style of a journal paper, each guide begins with an abstract – not a helpful foreword, as mentioned. The guide is presented as a 33 page-long journal paper, including front and back covers, and associated pages. It is lightly illustrated in graphics and has a number of substantial tables, primarily in the appendices. The guide-as-a-paper has 14 sections, rather than
chapters, as follows: 1. Introduction 2. Terminology & glossary 3. Asset and project information management 4. BIM use cases 5. Information management processes and responsibilities 6. Model interoperability and common data environment 7. Level of information need 8. Tunnel modelling 9. Ground modelling 10. Sustainability 11. Classification systems 12. Exchange data formats 13. BIM for tunnels used in mining 14. BIM and GIS
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