Digital disruption through the tunnel

With the design, safety and risk considerations of immersed tunnels, it’s imperative for constructors and engineers to have timely access to accurate and highly-detailed data. Digital engineering tools can help to achieve this if used in an effective way.

Two-dimensional drawings still have a place on projects as they are used for construction, but 3D models can house sets of data for the tunnel systems designs. Models deliver value by allowing engineers to generate designs that require complex coordination between structural design and systems. Graphical interfaces enable customisable design workflow to occur simultaneously and work nodes to be connected to specific tasks and inputs.

By defining different parameters, in 3D, to represent different dimensions of tunnel cross sections, the weight of tunnel elements and ballast concrete can be determined automatically. The dimensions and weights can then be exported to buoyancy checking programmes for several iterations until the best dimensions are determined.

With the adoption modelling for the buoyancy checking of immersed tunnels, it can significantly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of checking processes. In addition, the dimensions of the tunnel elements can be exported to the digital structural analysis modelling programme for serviceability and ultimate limited state checking.

This leap from manually generating 2D design plans to adopting ‘smart’ digital processes for immersed tunnels will also contribute to the collaboration and co-creation of constructing these modern ‘invisible’ transport networks.

Tunnels play an important role in facilitating commerce and travel between points separated by mountains, rivers, bays, and even straits. Improvements in equipment, processes, digital technology and tunnel systems are entering a whole new era with smart technology, allowing us to deliver improvements in how we design and construct immersed tunnels.

I’m proud to be contributing to the building of immersed tunnels to make travel faster, more convenient, safer and easier, for residents of some of the world’s largest cities, and I’m looking forward to embracing the future changes in the way we construct road, rail and utilities tunnels.

Author: CK Tsang

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