| Underground construction
BC Hydro has reached a major milestone on the Site C project with the completion of the earthfill dam
Webuild, a key partner in the Snowy 2.0 project, welcomed the announcement by Snowy Hydro. In a statement, Webuild highlighted its commitment to the project despite the challenges faced in recent years. They emphasized the significant achievements made to date, including the launch of tunnel-boring machines, production of concrete segments, job creation in the Snowy Mountain region, and increased female participation in the project. Webuild expressed pride in contributing to a strategic renewable energy project that supports a transition to a low-carbon emissions future, building upon the legacy of the original Snowy Hydro scheme.
Canada The Peace River Hydro Partners consortium (PRHP)
has completed the construction of the Site C dam in British Columbia, Canada.
PRHP, a partnership between Acciona Infrastructure Canada Inc and Samsung C&T Canada Ltd, was awarded the C$2.63 billion (US$1.93 billion) contract by BC Hydro in 2015. It is one of Acciona’s largest projects in Canada. To divert the river, the PRHP used road headers to
excavate two twin tunnels 800m long and each with an 11m diameter. The tunnels were then lined with concrete. In total, more than 100m3
of earth was moved.
PRHP was also responsible for construction of the earthen dam and the roller-compacted concrete dam. The Site C Clean Energy Project is one of the
largest infrastructure initiatives in Canada. When it is complete in 2025, it will provide energy to a population equivalent to 450,000 homes or 1.7 million electric vehicles per year in British Columbia. During construction, PRHP employed several
measures to reduce the project’s carbon footprint. These included the use of an earth movement platform and GPS machinery tracking to optimise routes and fuel consumption, and construction processes
Improving the efficiency and safety of hydraulic tunnel construction
A large number of hydraulic tunnels are needed for diversion and water transfer projects such as pumped storage power stations and dam projects. In their new paper published in Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology, Zhang et al present a novel integrated framework for improving the safety and efficiency of hydraulic tunnel construction. The authors say that this complex engineering system requires certain tasks such
as system simulation, visualisation, and numerical calculation to ensure construction quality. Currently, the simulation process requires significant manual intervention to transfer information which increases the probability of errors in repetitive work. In previous studies, the construction schedule and surrounding rock stability are
two independent problems that are not consistent with the actual conditions. A novel framework is therefore taken in this paper by integrating BIM, system simulation, numerical simulation, and deep learning to improve tunnel construction efficiency. The integrated framework offers considerable potential for decision support, and its novel methods are concluded as follows: 1. The proposed tunnel geometry model with time attributes associates progress information with the 3D model. And the proposed geometric template can be adapted to other tunnel projects to help improve engineering design efficiency and information integration.
2. Based on the geometric model information and construction information, the authors have designed a numerical simulation method coupled with the schedule, which can quickly evaluate the stability of the surrounding rock during construction. In addition, a parametric numerical model workflow is used to provide decision support for the arrangement parameters of rock bolts.
3. The multistep prediction model of surrounding rock deformation based on Long Short-Term Memory shows good performance and provides a new method for evaluating structural safety. The authors conclude that the proposed integrated framework will be beneficial to designers and engineering managers because it can help them make decisions by combining information from different aspects rather than developing complex design tools and performing repetitive modifications. Furthermore, it provides an intuitive and efficient tunnel construction management method hence promoting the information flow of multiple participants and professionals in tunnel construction and providing decision support.
www.waterpowermagazine.com | October 2023 | 15
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