STUVA Conference 2009 - Review

The 2009 STUVA Conference held in Hamburg from December 1st to 3rd, bore the motto "Tunnels - Key to Sustainable Mobility". This motto was impressively underlined in Hamburg. After all Germany’s second largest metropolis continues to be growing constantly. As the second largest container port in Europe and the world’s third largest location for civil aircraft construction Hamburg represents an outstanding hub for logistics and transportation. Such expansion is impossible without safeguarding mobility.

Consequently in 2009 more than 1,500 tunnellers from 28 nations turned up for one of the world’s biggest events for underground construction in order to exchange experiences, consolidate new contacts and rekindle existing ones.

The conference was opened by Professor Martin Ziegler, the chairman of the STUVA Inc. The participants were welcomed on behalf of the host city Hamburg by Senator Dr. Michael Freytag, the chairman of the supervisory board of the HafenCity Hamburg GmbH and chairman of the supervisory board of the Hamburger Hochbahn AG.

The series of lectures began in a very unusual and highly entertaining manner with the first keynote lecture presented by Prof. Hartwig Beiche, which reflected tunnels in conjunction with culture. In the second keynote address Ministerialrat Dipl-Ing. Joachim Naumann reported on current developments in road tunnelling as well as findings in retrofitting tunnels. The following block of lectures provided an overview of outstanding major projects in Scandinavia. This year attention was focused on this region. First of all it is close in geographical terms to Hamburg in the north of Germany. Secondly remarkable tunnel projects are being undertaken at present and in the near future in this part of Europe.

At this year’s conference the topic of safety in tunnelling was accorded especially wide scope triggered by national and international events, as particularly the collapse of Cologne’s Historic City Archives during the construction of the North-South Urban Light Railway provoked major uncertainty in conjunction with underground construction among the general public. The STUVA as one of the main organisations involved in underground construction in this connection provided a paper on safety and risks in tunnelling in the form of an interdisciplinary analysis and showed that tunnelling in general and especially in inner urban areas does not conceal incalculable risks providing certain rules are observed. Walter Reinarz, KVB board member presented the consequences of the accident on behalf of the Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe AG.

A further group of lectures devoted itself to the important subject of safety, with emphasis accorded tunnel operation. In this connection the focus was particularly on fire in tunnels, which continues to represent one of the major hazards. Apart from combating fire, providing information to users and their evacuation were also dealt with.

On this occasion as well a separate block examined legal and insurance issues. Even although these topics are often to some extent neglected by technically-minded engineers, it is frequently these issues that decide whether a project can become an economic success. As a result practice was reflected in the lecture programme. It was also shown that contractual partners must deal fairly with one another to ensure that such a sophisticated technical task as the building of a tunnel can be executed successfully and above all safety.
The series of lectures was rounded off by a block dealing with underground construction in the Hamburg area.

The 2-day exhibition that accompanied the conference in direct relation with the lecture programme occupied a net stand space of some 2,000 m² from 6,000 m² hall area. Here 128 German and foreign companies involved in execution, subcontracting, planning and consulting presented their products and performances in the field of foundation engineering and tunnelling to a highly-qualified public.

The excursions on Day 3 rounded of the event and provided opportunities for consolidating an exchange of views and experience in a tried and tested manner. Conference participants were invited to join the excursions to the HafenCity construction site, the new control centre in the Hochbahnhaus, the 4th Elbe Tunnel Tube, the DESY technical facilities or the Airbus factory at Finkenwerder.

We should like to thank the City of Hamburg for its hospitality and the various offices involved for their collegial support in organising the excursions.

STUVA Prize 2009

Every two years the Research Association for Underground Transportation Facilities Inc. (STUVA) awards the STUVA Prize for outstanding performances and innovations in the field of underground construction on the occasion of the STUVA Conference. Personalities as well as future-oriented projects can be honoured by this prize.

This year the jury awarded the STUVA Prize 2009 to Prof. Dr.-Ing. E. h. Heinz Duddeck in appreciation of and as a tribute to his lifework in tunnelling (Fig. 3). Until becoming emeritus professor in 1996 he held the chair and was director of the Institute for Statics at Brunswick Technical University.

Professor Duddeck greatly influenced tunnelling over the years. Originally concentrating on structural engineering and bridge-building his sphere of activities extended to embrace underground construction by dint of his thirst for knowledge in trying to get to the bottom of things. He first came in contact with tunnelling through compiling statics for a part of the Hamburg metro system. Towards this end he came up with a new analytical method for the bedded circular ring. His related article jointly published with Schulze on "Stresses in shield-driven Tunnels" has become a standard publication. He questioned many of the methods of calculation that were applied at the time. He came to initiate studies devoted to "tunnelling" with the German Research Foundation (DFG) and became a member of the senate as well as the main committee of this body. From then on he focused on tunnelling for almost three decades (1966 till 1996), which was also reflected in his setting up a consultancy office. The list of his test and consulting activities includes practically all prestigious German projects: Hamburg Elbe Tunnel 1966, Gelsenkirchen urban railway tunnel (mining problems), tunnels for the new DB German Rail route between Hanover and Würzburg (18 individual projects), Ems Tunnel Leer, excavation pit and tunnel at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, 4th Elbe Tunnel Tube, Weser Tunnel and BEWAG Tunnel Berlin. Some 300 publications and around 250 papers testify to his commitment.

Proceedings

The proceedings - Volume 43 in the STUVA series "Research + Practice, Underground Transportation and underground Construction" - with the full versions of all papers (either in their German or English original and abstracts in the other language) once again appeared to coincide with the conference. It was presented to all the participants. Further copies are available via the book trade or directly from the publisher (Bauverlag BV GmbH, Profil - die Versandbuchhandlung, Avenwedder Str. 55, 33311 Gütersloh; 264 pp., 348 mostly coloured Ills. and Tables, Format DIN A4. soft cover, ISBN 978-3-7625-3623-9. Price € 49.-).