search.noResults

search.searching

saml.title
dataCollection.invalidEmail
note.createNoteMessage

search.noResults

search.searching

orderForm.title

orderForm.productCode
orderForm.description
orderForm.quantity
orderForm.itemPrice
orderForm.price
orderForm.totalPrice
orderForm.deliveryDetails.billingAddress
orderForm.deliveryDetails.deliveryAddress
orderForm.noItems
TARCISIO B. CELESTINO | INTERVIEW


establish a board of consultants of which I am a member. It has been challenging to interact with very high-level professionals and international companies responsible for state-of-the-art laboratory and in-situ investigation work as well as sophisticated numerical models. Mitigation measures have been implemented based on the results of the numerical models. Following the results from the instrumentation and checking the effectiveness of the mitigation measures has been rewarding.” Sustainability is another theme of interest.


The construction of tunnels uses energy and has high carbon and emissions cost, but their use when considered over the long- term, he says, almost always repays that cost many times over – both in reduction of emissions and in other measures of quality of life. “Sao Paulo metro is an example of this,”


he says. Extension of the city’s Metro Line 5 was recently completed; the new Metro Line 6, under construction and scheduled for opening in 2025, is claimed as the largest current infrastructure project in South America. “Pollution caused by cars has a lot of


negative consequences in cost and in morbidity,” he says. “The Sao Paulo metro has hugely reduced the number of cars in the city. Just think of the monetary savings; and, think as well of the number of people who were suffering and even dying from pollution.” The World Bank has estimated the


greenhouse gas savings over the lifetime of the assets from the extension and modernization of Metro Line 5 to be 2,960,000 tonnes of CO2


riverside land and, worse, would add many kilometers to the journey of each truck making the crossing. We did an analysis and found that the total extra CO2 emissions from lorries and passengers cars on those ramps would add up to much more than having an immersed tube tunnel solution –by an astonishing additional six thousand tonnes per year of CO2


plus 25


million kilometers of extra travel distance,” he says. A tunnel, on the other hand, he says,


would require shorter ramps, to be partly underground or submerged, and it need be only 1.5km long, of which 800m would be underwater. (The road distance between the two cities at present is 45km) Current proposals are for an immersed tube tunnel – the first such tunnel to be constructed in Brazil. It would carry six lanes of traffic, at a maximum depth of 21m. No waterfront land would be taken up; and traffic emissions would clearly be far less. And adds that the only advantage of a bridge over the tunnel, he says, is that the bridge would look good on tourist postcards. He also notes that Sao Paulo, in addition


to being 80km distant from Santos, sits on a plateau at 760m higher elevation; goods unloaded at Santos port must be trucked up the steep and winding gradients of the Serra do Mar escarpment to reach Sao Paulo. Here, too, his imagination suggests a solution that reflects sustainability goals: “A straight rail tunnel, at a constant gradient, with electric locomotives could carry them with far fewer emissions.” And even the locomotives might


equivalent, when


savings from the modal shift away from automobiles and buses to the metro are included. Economic benefits related to these emissions savings are expected to amount to US$75.6 million over 50 years. He has local tunneling projects that


he is passionate about. One concerns the city of Santos, which is the port that serves Sao Paulo some 80km away. It is actually the largest container port in South America. “The city of Guarujá lies opposite across


the estuary. For decades there has been talk of linking the cities, by tunnel or bridge.” Some local politicians, he says, argue for the bridge. “It would have to be high, to allow shipping to pass; therefore it would need long approach ramps; the bridge and ramps together would total 6km in length; and, those ramps would take a huge amount of


be minimized: he suggests, perhaps playfully, an electrically counterbalanced arrangement of carriages, with exporting goods on the downhill carriages pulling the opposite ones uphill. That may sound fanciful. But I tell him that my own home town, on the English south coast, has two Victorian-era funicular railways working on exactly that principle – though admittedly they are meters rather than kilometers long. But why should not the imagination soar, in tunneling as in everything else? In Tarcisio B Celestino, tunneling imagination is not in short supply.


Right:


Tarcisio B. Celestino was President of Brazilian Tunnelling Committee President, 2007-2010 and 2015-2016


Winter 2023 | 25


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57