CHANNEL TUNNEL BETWEEN UK AND FRANCE

Problems and its solutions during the construction of

tunnel channel:
Design challenge:
The scale of the design is massive. The project is contractually defined by the
following categories of performances :
(a) system throughput
(b) performance of shuttle trains
(c) environment
(d) safety and passengers evacuation
(e) scenarios and operational procedures
For fixed equipment and rolling stock, the emphasis on engineering activities
shifted to design monitoring and interfaces management across all engineering
disciplines. The challenge, in the early stages, was to provide sufficient information
to allow civil works to proceed.

Natural Disaster Risks:

A natural disaster can strike at any moment, anywhere. What were to happen if an
earthquake were to strike along the English Channel and severed the Chunnel?
Water would seep in little by little until the pressure is too great to withstand in the
structure. The structure would then collapse/explode and ruin the underground
connection between Britain and France. Another disaster that could ruin the
Chunnel is a Tsunami. A huge wave of water pounding directly above the English
Channel could completely collapse the Chunnel. Even though these risks may seem
a little off the wall, they must still be accounted. People’s lives are at stake when
building a project of this magnitude.

Accidents and Damage to Structural Integrity:

There are also several incidents that could damage the structural integrity of the
Chunnel as a whole. Someone could drop a bomb in the English Channel which
would completely destroy the Chunnel and any structure within it. Maybe a secret
submarine could be to low in the water and crash into the seabed, which could
possibly ruin the structural integrity of the system. Again, there is nothing we can
do to stop these problems. All we can do is hope that these problems will not be
prominent in the region related to the Chunnel.
➢ The Alpine rail tunnels through solid rock were blasted with dynamite and the
extreme casualties in the Gotthard have already been mentioned. With 4000
men working inside the tunnel, often waist deep in water and at temperatures
of 50°C, the many deaths are not surprising. How different were the conditions
during construction inside the Channel Tunnel. Eleven enormous TBMs,
weighing 1000 t each, were digging two running tunnels for the railways with
their rotating. shields, and, between them, a service tunnel crosslinked
frequently with the rail tunnels. Laser guided and electrically driven, the TBMs
moved the excavated spoil over a conveyor belt to waiting trains at their back.
They also fitted curved segments of the lining, all actions being controlled by a
single engineer from his operating cabin.
➢ When the two tunnels met, they were less than half a metre out of line, just one
of the achievements of Transmanche Link, the group which combined the 16
contracting English and French companies. Here I can mention just two further
achievements of the project that have impressed me greatly, the sequential use
of three different electric power supplies and the solution of what the French
 call Ie pistonnement. In southern England the locomotives have to use
retractable shoegear to draw power from a third rail at 750 V dc. In the tunnel
itself and for the French and Belgian high speed lines, electric power is supplied
at 25 000 V ac through an overhead catenary. In the conventional Belgian
network, between Lille and Brussels, the rating is 3000 V dc.
➢ A high speed train in a tunnel is like a loose fitting piston in a cylinder, working
against the air pressure building up ahead. In the Channel Tunnel a great deal of
energy would be consumed by this 'piston effect', Ie pistonnement. In the longer
Alpine tunnels, this piston effect is only of minor importance, because speeds
are relatively low, and the tunnels are usually wide enough to allow two railway
lines side by side, thus reducing the air pressure ahead of the train. This problem
is also absent in water supply tunnels, for example the longest tunnel in the
world, 169 km, between West Delamare and New York City. Not so in the
Channel Tunnel, where special piston relief ducts between the two running
railway tunnels had to be incorporated to overcome the aerodynamic
resistance. However, this solution introduced its own new problems, such as
excessive jet and roll effects. A graphic optimisation process finally gave an
acceptable solution to one more problem.
➢ Fortunately, no major flooding or other disasters occurred during the
construction of the Channel Tunnel, as had happened with so many other
tunnels. The Thames tunnel flooded on several occasions and the Severn Tunnel
flooded in 1879. The really major crises, which occurred time and again, were in
the financial engineering of the Channel Tunnel, when it became essential to
raise a loan of £5000m and equity of £1000m in 1987. In October of that year,
the stock market crashed and it became even more difficult for Kirkland and his
colleagues2 to persuade the 198 banks to subscribe the loan. The fact that
barely 2 months after the stock market crash, the civil engineering work started
is surely as great an achievement as any in the chronicle of the Channel Tunnel.
It had been laid down that no engineering work could begin until all financial
needs had been secured.