Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Planning and costs
The contract between the commissioning party - NV Westerscheldetunnel -
and the contractor - Kombinatie Middelplaat Westerschelde - was signed
on 29th June 1996. Since 15th July 1996 - the official commencement date
for the implementation of the contract - the client began with the details of
the necessary planning procedures, the land acquisitions and the obtaining
of the various permits.The contractor started with the further elaboration of
the design and the construction planning of the actual implementation.
The construction phase began at the end of November 1997 with the con-
struction of the southern access ramp at Terneuzen, which also acts as the
starting shaft for both of the tunnel boring machines. The originally planned
delivery date was 15th November 2002. However, the 'scope extension' in
connection with the taking of extra safety precautions as well as problems in
the field of land acquisition, soon led to a new delivery date: 15th March 2003.
Fig. 1.9
Time schedule for the
construction of the
Westerschelde Tunnel
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Construction site south
Commencement of implementation
Access ramp south
Tunnel boring process
Cross connections
Cellars
Heat-resistant cladding
Technical installations
Other fitting out work of the tunnel
Construction site north
Caisson
Access ramp north
Roads and engineering structures north
Roads and engineering structures south
Office building
Toll square
Completion
Demobilization
In the spring of 1999, KMW started the assembly of these boring machines.
The actual boring process commenced in July 1999; a start was made on the
easterly tunnel tube, two months later this was followed by the westerly tube.
The access roads were worked on simultaneously to the boring of the tun-
nel: at the end of 1998 the construction of the access road at Zuid-Beveland
was started, followed by that at Zeeuwsch-Vlaanderen in May 2000.
Due to a number of technical setbacks during the boring in the period July
1999 to mid 2000, it looked as if the delivery date of 15th March 2003 would
not be achieved and that the project would overrun by almost a year. During
consultations between the commissioning party and the contractor, a new
delivery date of 14th November 2003 was agreed. Part of this agreement
was that KMW was also stimulated (financially) to take acceleration meas-
ures which had to make it possible to be finished before 14th November
2003. By eventually achieving a time gain of 8 months, KMW amply suc-
ceeded in putting the tunnel into operation on 14th March 2003; one day
prior to the original delivery date. KMW achieved this time gain by starting
with the fitting out at an earlier stage than usual and by putting in a lot of
extra equipment and manpower both during the boring process and the fit-
ting out. In order to make this possible, a lot of attention was paid to the
Search WWH ::
Custom Search