Nanjing Yangtze River Crossing Tunnel

Structural planning for the construction of a street tunnel underneath the River Yangtze

Nanjing, the capital of the Chinese province Jiangsu, is an important traffic hub on the axis from Shanghai into the inner country. For the sake of load relief for the Big Yangtze Bridge and in order to canalise the quickly rising amount of traffic, a three-lane, approx. 3 km long street tunnel is constructed underneath the River Yangtze.

The project ”Nanjing Yangtze River Crossing Tunnel” includes the production of the 2-tube tunnels with a length of 2.990 m. The underpass of the Yangtze River was realised with a hydro shield drive with a diameter of 14,93 m.

As special boundary conditions, the water surface height of up to 45 m and the overburden of mainly sand-gravel-based and silty grounds of up to 20 m have to be mentioned, which is why only partial subsidence for the sake of machine assessment was possible in the to-be-examined areas.

The commissioned service included the specialist planning in section 1 - structural planning for the service phase 4 (approval planning) according to HOAI (Official Scale of Fees for Services by Architects and Engineers). Furthermore, a technical consulting for the executive ARGE was processed for the execution. Calculations for the permitted subsidence and the associated air pressure for the machine maintenance ensued.