Technical innovations
World Tunnel Congress 2016, 22nd-28th April 2016,A successful week in San Francisco: 2 319 attendeesgathered around the latest technological and technical innovations in urban underground planning
From April 22nd to 28th in San Francisco, United States, the International Tunnelling andUnderground Space Association (ITA) held its 42nd General Assembly along with the2016 World Tunnel Congress (WTC), co-organised with the Underground ConstructionAssociation of SME. As states demonstrate strong needs in tunnels and underground spacesfor public transports, interchange subway stations, hydroelectric infrastructures, etc, theWTC 2016 was a unique occasion to discover the latest state-of-the art innovations in urbanplanning and underground construction projects in the United States and worldwide.
Thisinternational event, widely recognised among tunnelling professionals, civil engineers, andpublic authorities, is, indeed, the top attended annual “rendez-vous” that currently permitsto have a clear vision of the latest projects of underground infrastructures over the planet.
This year, 2 319 participants gathered around several strategic questions raised by countries:how are cities coping with climate change pressures, a few months after the COP21negotiations in Paris? How could they improve their networks of mobility and, at the sametime, develop green and pedestrian areas above ground? What will the urban planning of thefuture be? What is the future of material freight? In what way can high technologies in tunnelsand underground spaces contribute to the development of smart cities? Convinced that thetunnelling industry have ingenious responses to address these challenges, the ITA, along withthe UCA of SME, offered the attendees a large panel of several high profile conferences, up to200 technical sessions, and oral and poster presentations to address these questions and thusfavour good practice and innovation sharing.
In thisregard, one can evocate the ITA Tech Session dedicated to the very recent exploitationof the Internet of Things (IoT) by the tunnelling industry. At that occasion, a representativeof SIGMA Connectivity offered an interesting perspective of the future IoT developments,pointing out that two strategic shifts would greatly influence the tunnelling industry: theconnexion of digital technologies with industrial products and logistics, from the one hand,and, above all, the development of easy-to-use IoT enablers, that will permit to drive highervolumes of data and to considerably reduce the costs of this revolutionary technology.
PauliArenram, Chair of the Committee on New Technologies within the ITA, expressed hissatisfaction regarding the value of the exchanges: “New digital technologies have definitelyreached the tunnelling industry. There is a growing need for safer and more reliable systemsthat communicate, deal with and report large data in actionable format to the stakeholdersfrom the investigation phase of tunnelling projects, during the construction and the tunneloperation phase. This ITA Tech Session was a great opportunity to find precious answers to thequestions and challenges of our industry”.
Another interesting session was held by the ITA Committee for Underground Space (ITACUS),who orientated the discussions on the international urban agenda, in which the UnitedNations, through their Habitat Program, take a great part. As other UN Consultative Membersinvolved in urban development, the ITACUS, through the World Urban Campaign, is in chargeof proposing new solutions to imagine sustainable cities. Through this open session, theITACUS developed new insights about the role that underground freight networks could takein this regards.
The Hyperloop technologies were also evocated, as well as CargoCheckSystems, in order to help stakeholders in port areas become aware of the relevance of urbanunderground freight systems. “During the session, we also heard a presentation on thepossibilities of mixed-use tunnels and the implications this could have, Han Admiraal, Chair ofITACUS, explained. Rather than building a tunnel for just one use, the future could bring urbannetwork providers creating underground spaces to be used by multiple parties. Urban systemintegrators would bring these parties together to ensure that the underground space is used inan efficient way. In the future, metro systems will not only move people, they will also beable to move cargo, and to carry cables that are essential to modern societies. Furthermore,they could be producing energy for the city beneath which they operate. The World TunnelCongress is the occasion to share bright ideas that could be of high value for cities in the nextfew years”.
During the WTC, specific workshops were also organized,like the Building Infrastructure Modelling (BIM) workshop.As governments worldwide tend to mandate andrecommend BIM process, thus recognizing its value forhelping to deliver projects successfully, the workshopaimed at identifying in what way tunnelling fundamentallydiffers from civil surface construction, and to making surethat BIM standards and processes reflect these majordifferences. Also, it focused on current trends in theapplication of BIM technology to tunnelling, to allowteams to reduce direct costs, improve efficiency andreduce risk.
Presentations being delivered by design,construction and project professionals and are not alignedwith particular software. According to Jurij Karlovšek, chairof the BIM open session, “there is a need to act fast and develop live online documents andprocedures for consultants, contractors, owners, and operators, describing the value, datasources, best practice and possible further actions for a project using BIM process for tunnels,because this technology is crucial for our industry. Therefore, it is of paramount importance toshare, within the ITA,these experiences and come to dedicated global standards and guidelinesthat so far are only driven by the building industry. The ITA should be a leader in the discussionand be proactive in integrating with the civil-end legislation, rather than waiting for tunnelowners/project proponents to dictate something else”.
What does the BIM
Technology aim at?
The BIM models are now muchmore than 3D animation. Theyare intelligent constructs withembedded information that canbe shared betweenstakeholders throughout anorganization, with thepossibility to provide significantbenefit in each phase of a tunnelproject lifecycle.
Innovation-oriented, the World Tunnel Congress was also an international business-tobusinessmeeting. In total, 285 booths were deployed in the Moscone Center, displaying thelatest technical devices launched by the most important champions of the tunnelling industry.
The participants had also the opportunity to look through more than 180 posters that gaveconcrete answers to various topics directly concerning civil engineers: innovativeprocurement processes, cost and risk management, contractual methods, BIM technologies,and even examples of innovative underground infrastructures built worldwide (wáter conveyance, sewage, and storage, cross rail tunnels, Washington DC or Los Angeles Metroprojects …).
The week ended with the 42ndGeneral Assembly of the ITA,during which the new Presidentof the Association, TarcisioCelestino, a civil engineer fromBrazil, was elected. The latterpresented his roadmap for histhree-year mandate: “The worldpopulation will nearly double inthe next three to four decades.This will bring a significantincrease to the need for underground facilities which will have to be designed and constructed,in addition to the current backlog. It is the role of ITA to indicate to government, decisionsmakers and the population, that underground urban infrastructure is the correct way to go.
Looking at the past, we find out that effort and resources have been spent in fixing mistakeslike elevated transportation routes which were later on put underground. If we start it right,we will spend less to have better results than did the past generations. ITA also has toenhance its consistent contribution of the Working Groups and Committees for theimprovement of design and construction techniques. By doing so and developing the idea thatunderground construction is safe and reliable, we can also expect, as a consequence, to throwsome light upon their licensing processes. This has become a bottleneck in many countries,almost eliminating the advantages for faster and more efficient construction techniques”.
https://youtu.be/9iS9AY7AZmo
About the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.
The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) is a non-profit and nongovernmentalinternational organization, which aims at promoting the use of underground space as asolution to sustainable development. Founded in 1974 and operating out of Lausanne, Switzerland, ITAcurrently associates 73 Member Nations, 300 affiliated members, 17 Prime Sponsors and 60 supporters.
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