TURKEY

EURASIA TUNNEL

Italferr, in a joint venture with Altinok Consulting Engineering, has been awarded the contract to supervise the works and to review the design of the Eurasia Tunnel, the underwater road tunnel connecting the European side of Istanbul (Kazliçeşme district) with the Asian side (Göztepe district). The approximately 15 km-long line, including 3.4 kilometers below sea level at a depth of about 25 meters, will cross the Bosphorus Strait in parallel with the Marmaray railway tunnel. The two-level, two-lane structure in each direction is designed to be crossed by 100,000 vehicles a day, bringing travel time between the two continents down from 1 hour 40 minutes to 15 minutes.

PARTS OF THE PROJECT

PART 1 - ROAD SECTION ON EUROPEAN SIDE (5.4 km): work on widening and upgrading the existing main and secondary roads and construction of new road interchanges, road and pedestrian overpasses and underpasses

PART 2 - UNDERPASSING OF THE BOSPORUS STRAIT (3.3 km): a tunnel of about 3,340 m that travels underneath the Bosporus, excavated with large-diameter TBMs (13.71 m), to a maximum depth of - 106 m asl. Due to the high pressures to be resisted at the face (11 bar), to heterogeneity of the soils and to the conditions of high permeability in places, the project is to be considered unprecedented and definitely highly complex. There is also a building used for the Concessionaire's offices (Automation and Control Building), which also contains the control room, active 24 hours a day, that by means of a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system receives all the data for real-time monitoring and management of the road section.

PART 3 - ROAD SECTION ON ASIAN SIDE (3.8 km): junction of new road branch with the existing road D100 that connects the Göztepe district with the Istanbul-Ankara motorway.

The activities carried out by the Italferr Altinok Joint Venture since the start of the contract have been:

Project Management;
Detailed design verification;
Work Schedule, Reporting and Contract Management;
Supervision of Construction works;
Supervision of geotechnical and electro-mechanical works;
Supervision of Tunnel Operation activities;
Supervision of Tunnel Maintenance activities.

The work was completed in record time, 8 months ahead of schedule, a testament to Italferr's overseas engineering efficiency, which resulted in the Turkish Administration extending the contract. The Eurasia Tunnel was opened to vehicular traffic in December 2016 and the Final Acceptance phase was completed in February 2017.