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Upgrading Vielha Road Tunnel

in the Pyrenees
Better Late than Never
The existing 5.24 km-long Vielha road
tunnel is situated on the Spanish side
of the Pyrenees on the N230 route to
Lleida. On the French side, the tunnel
provides access to the N125 route
towards Toulouse. The tunnel was
first suggested in 1830, but it was not
until nearly a century later that con-
struction began. It then took 15 years
to complete, having been delayed by
the Spanish civil war until 1941. The
opening was delayed again by WW2
until May, 1948, but Vielha was still
one of the first road tunnels in Spain,
and is still the second longest after
Somport.
New EU regulations have prompted
the installation of a rescue tunnel as
a second egress, and the solution at
Vielha has been to drive a new road
tunnel, and convert the existing
tunnel to serve as an emergency exit
and for trucks carrying hazardous
cargo. Contractor UTE Túnel de
Vielha is using four Atlas Copco
Rocket Boomer drillrigs, two WL3 Cs
to drive from each end, and two Copcisa (25%) and Comsa (25%) as part- Moving the Rocket Boomer WL3 C to
L2 Cs to excavate crosspassages. ners. The contract value is 128 million, the face at Vielha.
and the duration 39 months, with comple-
tion scheduled for June, 2005. It includes
Project Description all civil engineering of the new tunnel and
its accesses, installations and equipment,
The new 5.23 km-long Vielha tunnel, and the ventilation and central control
named Juan Carlos I, is located in Vall buildings.
d’Arán in Lérida province of Catalonia. It Within the tunnel there will be 25 safety
will be bi-directional, accommodating niches on one side, and 25 fire niches on the
three 3.5 m-wide lanes, two shoulders (0.5 opposite side, each situated 200 m apart.
and 1 m) and two 1 m-wide pavements. Twelve 12 m-long shelters, spaced at every
The central lane will be reversible, and two 400 m, and connecting with cross passages
of the three lanes will generally be used for leading to the old tunnel, will allow for
north-south traffic. The headroom is 5.29 m evacuation in the event of an incident. Eight
with a maximum gradient of 4.57%. laybys at 550 m intervals, four on each side,
Once the new tunnel is commissioned, will facilitate emergency stopping.
the old tunnel will be converted to its new The tunnel will be equipped with semi-
role. transverse reversible ventilation. In case of
The project designer is Idom, and tech- accident, the system will confine a fire and
nical assistance for work control and con- extract smoke through a false ceiling. This
struction supervision is being carried out ventilation will be able to expel the smoke
by consultants Sener. generated by a 30 MW fire with a volume
Construction was awarded in January, of 150 m3/sec on a stretch of 700 m.
2002 to UTE Túnel de Vielha, a temporary House-sized ventilation stations will be
joint venture headed by OHL (50%), with located at both ends.

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View of the equipment parking area at
the Vielha south portal.
Long view to the face at Vielha.
Other safety equipment includes 67
CCTV cameras, 12 variable message
panels, traffic lights, barriers to prevent
cars from entering the tunnel, SOS posts, a
network of telephones, radio communica-
tions and loudspeakers, a fire detection
system, water supply to fire hydrants at
the roadside and sprayers in the ceiling,
and automatic incident detection (AID).
The technical management of all these
systems will be handled in a new
control centre located 400 m from the
south portal.
The road surfacing will be vibrated con-
crete on thin concrete. It is fireproof, thus
avoiding fire propagation peculiar to
asphalt mixtures that contain bitumen.
Under the roadway, there will be a 3 m x
2.25 m service tunnel for the electric
wiring and water duct that will feed the
hydrants of the anti-fire niches.
Geology
From south to north, towards Vielha, the
massif is comprised of moraines for
210 m, followed by 420 m of fractured
granite, and 2,100 m of massive granite.
Then the Civis formation appears in con-
tact with the granite. This is a highly meta-
morphic rock of the Devonian period,
consisting mostly of slates, and will be the
trickiest tunnelling zone. After that, there
is a 1,600 m portion with quartzites, mixed
with shales in the next 250 m. The align-
ment crosses 420 m of Carboniferous shale
and blackish Silurian shale towards the
north portal.
The excavated cross section is 127 sq m,
and the lined section will be 95 sq m. The
south portal lies at 1,595 m and the north
entrance at 1,396 m, resulting in a gradient
of 4.57%.
Weather conditions can be extreme, as
was the case in late 2002, with tempera-
tures below –20°C. Work takes place all
year round, in three shifts/day from
Monday 8 am to Saturday 2 pm. Each team
is composed of a foreman, six workers, a
mechanic and an electrician.
Computerized Drillrigs
The JV acquired four Atlas Copco drillrigs:
two Rocket Boomer WL3 C models for the
main tunnel, and two Rocket Boomer L2 C
models to excavate the shelters and cross
passages to the existing tunnel.
The Rocket Boomer WL3 C is a fully
computerized drilling jumbo with three
booms and basket, capable of handling sec-
tions up to 155 sq m. The Rocket Boomer
L2 C is a twin boom drillrig for sections up
to 90 sq m. Both are equipped with COP
1838 rock drills and Secoroc drill bits.
These machines feature RCS, or rig
control system, an intelligent software that
can be adapted to the number of booms,
the level of automation and the introduc-
tion of new functions without need to
install an expensive and powerful computer
in the smaller and less complex rigs. This
system is reliable, flexible and easily
expandable, allowing new units to be
added anywhere along the data bus, with-
out adding another cable.
To improve the reliability of the system
for a multi-boom rig operating in the full
automation mode, two-level circuit com-
munication has been implemented. The

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upper level talks to the whole rig, and the

identical lower circuit talks to each boom
circuit. All signalling on angles in the
boom joints is restricted to the boom cir-
cuit, while the upper level system advises
only on the basic position of each boom.
The advantage of this setup is that a
lower level circuit fault on one boom
caused, perhaps, by falling rock or pinch-
ing against the sidewall, will not hamper
the operation of the other booms. The soft-
ware is split into a number of blocks, and
individual blocks can be added, deleted or
modified. Auto-collaring and anti-jamming
functions are incorporated into the system,
and the combination of these, and
improved regulation of the double damp-
ened COP 1838 rock drills, produces
favourable drill steel costs. was introduced for the main tunnel and a Rocket Boomer WL3 C drilling the face
The operator can control the whole rig Rocket Boomer L2 C for the ancillary work. at Vielha.
from one panel, and he can communicate Since the Rocket Boomer WL3 C com-
with any of the booms. This means that menced in August, 2003, its average
only one operator is needed for two progress has been 7 m/day, 40 m/week and
booms, or all three booms if it is a three- 175 m/month. By mid-November, 2003, the
boom rig. This also applies to short holes south drive had reached the 900 m mark
because the boom movements and feed three weeks ahead of schedule. A full exca-
positioning are carried out without the vation cycle at the main face takes 14 hours.
assistance of the operator. Jamming of The drill pattern involves 150 holes
the drill steel no longer occurs, saving time across the 127 sq m section. These are
and giving straighter holes. 5 m-long and 51 mm-diameter, with four
Another important feature of RCS rigs 102 mm cut holes. The explosives are
is the built-in diagnostic procedure for the Goma-2, in 26 mm and 32 mm cartridges
electronic system, making it easy to find supplied by Unión Española de Explosivos.
and repair faults. Also, because electronic Support in the granitic zone is by
components are common and interchange- application of 3 cm of fibre-reinforced
able, fewer spares are required at site. The shotcrete, followed by a second layer of
Atlas Copco maintenance contract at identical thickness without fibres, and
Vielha makes provision for a mechanic on installation of 13 bolts/m of Atlas Copco
secondment at the site, and a spares con- Swellex Mn 12 rockbolts using the drillrig Rocket Boomer L2 C drilling out the top
tainer at each portal. platform. heading.

South Drive
At the south portal, on the Vilaller side,
construction started with a canopy of spiles
in the first 210 m of moraine. The 15 m-
long umbrella vaults were composed of 65
steel pipes, 89 cm in diameter, beneath
which a 12 m-deep top heading was exca-
vated. The next canopy was then installed
with a 3 m overlap and the process repeat-
ed throughout the soft ground. HEB 180
steel arches were erected, and sprayed with
two layers of shotcrete, with and without
fibres.
When the granite was reached, a ramp
was developed downwards to open the full
section, and the Rocket Boomer WL3 C

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which the excavation was reduced to top

heading only. Here, the second Rocket
Boomer WL3 C drills 98 holes in the
upper part of the face and 26 mm car-
tridges are used for the blasts, with
HEB 180 and TH 21 steel beams installed
for support. The fault itself was crossed
by installing four sections of umbrella
vaults.
Some 35-40 lit/sec of incoming water is
collected in a drain and gravitates towards
the exit, where it is treated in two 12 m-
diameter tanks in which pH is corrected
and the particles settle out.

Rocket Boomer L2 C drilling for
Swellex bolts.
There is some water ingress, which col-
lects at the face and requires pumping
round the clock.
North Drive
Progress at the north drive, on the Vielha
side, had reached 1,700 m by mid-
November, 2003. Some 60 m had been
excavated using the second Rocket Boomer
L2 C on cross passage number 12, 54 m on
number 11, and 2 m on number 10.
The main tunnel excavation began with
the widening to 127 sq m of a 1,350 m-
long, 60 sq m ventilation tunnel that con-
nected with the existing Vielha tunnel.
Support is made up of a 5 cm fibre-
reinforced shotcrete layer, Swellex Mn
rockbolts at one unit per sq m, wire mesh,
more bolts at five units per lineal m, and
6 cm of shotcrete without fibres.
There is a fault approximately 400 m
inbye of the widened ventilation tunnel, at
Table 1: Four types of ground support have been designed to suit the various ground
conditions and are shown in the table.
Mucking-out
The total tunnel system, including the
cross passages between the new tunnel and
the existing one, will generate 671,337 cu m
of spoil. This is being transported to
dumps at the north portal and 5 km away
from the south portal. The granite is
processed in a crushing plant to produce
aggregates. There is one concrete plant at
each portal.
The machinery used for the mucking-
out at the south drive include five 25 t
dumpers Volvo A25 and a loader. A
second loader and two 25 t dumpers are
used at the north drive.
There is still one year of tunnelling
required to breakthrough, which should be
accomplished by end-2004. ■
Acknowledgements
Atlas Copco is grateful to UTE Túnel
de Vielha, and in particular to project
administrator Pedro García Borjabad and
project manager Ángel Martín Aragón, for
their assistance with the site visit on which
this article is based.

Support Shotcrete Shotcrete Shotcrete 4 m long Arches/ Micropiles

Type Sealing 2nd Layer 3rd Layer Swellex bolts lattice
Layer Girders

1A 3 cm 3 cm – 1 per 2 sq m – –
1B 3 cm 7 cm – 1 per 2 sq m – –
2 3 cm 6 cm 6 cm 1 per 1.5 sq m – –
3A 3 cm 11 cm 3 cm 1 per 1.5 sq m TH – 21 –
3B 3 cm 9 cm 9 cm 1 per 1.5 sq m HEB – 180 –
4 3 cm 10 cm 10 cm – HEB – 180 150 mm-
diameter,
12 m-long

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