UAE | Traffic and Transport
Tunnelling under Creek to begin in May
Tunnelling work for the underground lines of the Dubai Metro started in February. There will be a total of 12.3km of underground metro line.
- By Ashfaq Ahmed, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 March 19, 2007
- A tunnel boring machine is being used to excavate the first tunnel from Union Square Station to BurJuman Station.
- Image Credit:
Dubai: Tunnelling work for the underground lines of the Dubai Metro started in February. There will be a total of 12.3km of underground metro line.
Click here to view Dubai Metro project map (pdf)
A tailor-made tunnel boring machine (TBM) is being used to excavate the first tunnel from Union Square Station to BurJuman Station. The 1.4km- long tunnel will be completed by August.
The second tunnel is being excavated using TBM from Union Square Station to Al Rigga Station and it will continue to Deira City Centre Station.
An approximately two-kilometre-long tunnel is due for completion in February 2008. Work on this tunnel will start in April. The Red Line has a total of 4.7km of underground tunnel.
Tunnelling work on the Green Line will start in April 2008 and will be completed in October 2008. The first tunnel will be 2.7km long from Al Ghubaiba Station to Al Saeediya and BurJuman Station. There will be 7.9km of underground line on the total 22.6km Green Line.
Tunnelling work under the Dubai Creek will start in May this year. The tunnel will cross the Creek at a depth of 11 metres below the seabed. The average tunnel depth will be 18 metres while the maximum will be 28 metres.
Safety
The Red Line tunnel will cross under the creek from Union Square to BurJuman while the Green Line tunnel will cross under the creek between Al Ras in Deira and Al Ghubaiba station in Bur Dubai.
While most parts of the Red Line are being built using the road corridor, the Green Line will pass under the buildings in the Central Business District area of Deira and Bur Dubai. Studies have been completed on the safety of the buildings. Structural information about buildings has been gathered.
Al Bugeisha, the tunnel boring machine
The tunnel-boring machine has been named Al Bugeisha after the small desert rodent found in Asia and North Africa and locally known as 'Al Bugeisha' in the UAE, for its burrowing characteristics.
Al Bugeisha has been designed and assembled in Japan especially for the Dubai Metro. It has a diameter of 9.56 metres. It is 82 metres long and weighs about 1,000 tones.
The TBM is used as an alternative to drilling and blasting methods and has the advantages of minimum disturbance to the surrounding soil and producing a smooth tunnel wall.
One TBM was launched in February to excavate the 1.4 km tunnel from Union Square to BurJuman Centre underground stations while the other TBM machine will be launched in April to excavate the tunnel from Union Square to Al Rigga and Deira City Centre underground stations.
Each machine costs around Dh50 million and covers a distance of 270 metres per month.
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