Light Weight Deflectometer for Brenner Base Tunnel

Our light weight deflectometer device is currently in use on the largest construction site in Austrian history, the Brenner Base Tunnel (BBT). This project, assigned to the building contractor PORR AG last year, disposes of a volume of 1 billion EUR and is intended to transfer heavy traffic from road to rail. Between the locations Pfons and Brenner, two passageways are dug by tunnel boring machines on a length of 37 km. The construction time for this partial project is calculated to six years, and the complete tunnel is intended to be completed until the end of 2025. The tunnel with a complete of 64 km will follow in parallel the Brenner highway from Innsbruck to Franzensfeste. The total construction cost of this worldwide longest underground tunnel amounts to 8.7 billion EUR. The Hinteregger & Söhne company from Salzburg, Austria, represents another partner in this project, working for years with five TERRATEST® lightweight deflectometers as well.

TERRATEST Light Weight Deflectometers involved

In the end of February, a new light weight deflectometer TERRATEST 6000 BLE with Bluetooth technology was delivered to PORR AG. “This instrument is used in the disposal site Padastertal, where the excavated material is inserted”, explains construction manager Janosch Albertin. “I have already worked with the previous Bluetooth model, but the new device is even more practical; because I simply operate it by means of my iPhone! All measuring results immediately appear on my smartphone and can be transmitted at once.”

Approximately a third of excavated material (total amount ca. 17 m. tons) can be reused in form of mineral aggregates for construction industry, whereas 7.7 m. tons are inserted in the disposal site Padastertal. This place represents an uninhabited valley and is located 10 km to the south of the Brenner Pass and is lifted by up to 70 m by this material. After insertion, the surface of the disposal site is restored to its original state can be used as pasture. Even the creek is “lifted” on a length of 1400 m, without affecting the idyllic view of the valley. “I am proud that our light weight deflectometer is used for dynamic load plate tests for the construction of this disposal site”, declares Frank G. Schulz, CEO of TERRATEST. “Each time I’m travelling along the Brenner route, I will think of the contribution of TERRATEST® to this project of the century.”