Starting and end shafts of the Sophia railway tunnel

摘要

The Sophia railway tunnel in the West of the Netherlands is at the moment under construction as part of the Betuwelijn railway line, a freight line from the port of Rotterdam to Zevenaar near the German border. The tunnel is located near Papendrechtand is 8115 meters long, crosses two rivers, two highways (the A15 and the A16), eleven local roads and the railway line Rotterdam-Dordrecht. The tunnel consists of 3875 meters of ramp sections (traditionally built, open and closed box sections) and 4240meters of bored tunnel sections with a slurry shield. The bored tunnel sections consist of two tubes with an inner diameter of 8.65 m. The newly developed continuous advance method has been used to construct the Mixshield. In this paper the design of the shafts at which the bored tunnel starts and ends will be discussed from a geotechnical point of view.