8km Tunnel Dewatering, Chile, South America

THE PROJECT

In a big power plant project in Chile, 70km of tunnels were being drilled around the Andes. By design the tunnelling was separated into main tunnels and smaller supply tunnels. One of the latter ones was built with a total length of more than 8km for the purpose of providing access to the main tunnelling area. During the construction of this supply tunnel plenty of water had to be removed over a long distance.

COMPANY CARRYING OUT THE WORKS

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TSURUMI SUPERVISOR

Tsurumi Europe Engineering Team

THE PROBLEM

The supply tunnel had been smaller in terms of dimension, hence space was very limited and would not allow for conventional dewatering by installation of several basins and pumping stations. Furthermore, ongoing traffic by trucks, diggers, excavators made the small available space even smaller.

THE SOLUTION

The Tsurumi engineering team assessed the situation on site and proposed a solution of dry-installed pumps in serial connection at different distances. Furthermore, the installation was fixed on the tunnel walls in order to save as much space as possible. Each installed pump managed to transport drainage water over a distance of 4 km.

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