CERN: Mining tunnel for technical equipment of the HL-LHC
Meyrin, Switzerland
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is the world’s largest particle accelerator. In order to increase its potential for future experiments during the next decade still further, the LHC is currently undergoing an upgrading. Doka supplied the crown-arch formwork for four 50 – 70 metre-long crossways, for which three formwork carriages and a large amount of customized formwork were used.
Challenge:
- Considerable time pressure to complete the work before the planned restart of the accelerator in early 2021
- High complexity of various structures
- Need to ensure that formwork elements could be reused
- Elaborate construction workflow
Solution:
Using bolt-on wheel sets form a Doka supporting construction frame. With these, the four elements can be maneuvered accurately inside the tunnel. The bolt-on wheel sets are then removed in the tunnel, and the formwork carriage is set back on its heavy-duty rollers.
Project data
Construction period:
2018 - 2022
Switzerland
City
Meyrin
Contractors
Marti Tunnel AG
Building data
LHC circumference:
26,659 m
Tunnel diameter
approx. 3.80 m
average depth of tunnel below the earth´s surface:
100 m (min. 50 m, max. 175 m
Operating temperature:
1.9 K (-271,3 °C)
Electricity consumption:
approx. 120 MW
Annual data volume:
50,000,000 GB (=50 PB)
Total construction costs:
approx. CHF 6.5 billion