Sunken tunnels are traditionally equipped with concrete drop ends in the Netherlands. These are temporary walls that seal the ends of sunken tunnel units and ensure that the tunnel unit continues to float and can thus be transported and submerged. Attaching and removing concrete drop ends involves a number of disadvantages. For example, the required formwork, reinforcement and pouring are time-consuming, while removing the concrete is extremely time-consuming and polluting (dust, noise). The traditional drop ends cannot be recycled and are therefore environmentally unfriendly.
Mergor has developed modular steel drop ends that can be recycled. These drop ends have already been successfully used for the sunken tunnel under the Roer in Roermond, and are currently being used in our tunnel in Limerick, Ireland and for the 18 tunnel units for the Busan-Geoje Fixed Link in South Korea. This invention has saved the project a significant amount of time and money.
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Mergor site.