Geotechnical and structural monitoring system in forebay and TBM hydraulic tunnel
The Matanza-Riachuelo River flows for approximately 64 kilometers, from the birthplace known as the District of La Matanza, to the shores of La Boca.
The Matanza basin is the most polluted river in Latin America and it is considered one of the ten most polluted places globally, with very high levels of lead. This is changing, Argentina is implementing the most ambitious basin recovery project in its environmental history: the Integrated Plan for Environmental Sanitation for the cleanup and sustainable development of the Matanza-Riachuelo River basin.
The works, include the execution of a 50m deep underground hydraulic compensation shaft, a sub fluvial 4,3m ID outfall tunnel of 12km length excavated with an EPB type TBM, and >30 vertical diffusors executed along the last sector of the tunnel. It has been completed the filling with water of the innovative, high technical hydraulic tunnel 40 metres under the Rio de la Plata, BA, Argentina – Lot3.
The overall scheme will have a strong environmental and social impact as it will help cleaning up the Matanza – Riachuelo basin which in the last decades has been affected by a massive demographic boom and more importantly by a severe number of industries disposing of their production wastes. The scheme forms part of the broader programme for the sustainable development of the Matanza-Riachuelo basin, which is financed by the World Bank and is aimed at the environmental restoration of the whole area, the new Plant will be able to treat up to 2.3 million cubic metres of water a day.
Sisgeo has supplied all the Instrumentation and the Dataloggers for geotechnical and structural monitoring of the Hydraulic Compensation Shaft and for the entire EPB 12km length tunnel.
Sisgeo has provided:
- Quick Joint inclinometer casings
- Heavy Duty vibrating wire Piezometer
- Analogic MPBX borehole extensometer with vibrating wire displacement Transducers
- Vibrating wire strain gauges
- Brain system and portable and automatic dataloggers
- CRD 400 multipurpose readout
- Omnialog Datalogger
The automatic monitoring system has been a valuable and powerful help to support the Contractor and Designers.
More details are available in this technical article featured in the 38° number of the mexican Magazine “Obras Subterráneas de AMITOS” (AMITOS Asociación Mexicana de Ingeniería de Túneles y Obras Subterráneas, A.C. an ITA-AITES active member). CLICK HERE
A special thanks to Gianfranco Iannaccone, Sisgeo’s sales director, and Carlo Vezzoli, project manager of Sisgeo Latinoamerica for this complete and precious work.
