Providing uninterrupted travel through the Swiss Alps
Switzerland is one of the most mountainous countries in the world, dominated by the snow-capped peaks of the Alps and Jura Mountains. And if you can’t go over the mountains, your best bet is to go through them.
The country is no stranger to impressive road tunnels bored through its mountains – and CRH has played a pivotal role in the construction of many. JURA Materials, A CRH Company, was instrumental in creating the 57km-long Gotthard Base Tunnel, the longest and deepest railway tunnel in the world when it opened in 2016. Now, nearly ten years later, JURA Materials is putting its materials and expertise to work on another intrepid tunnel: the A8 Kaiserstuhl Tunnel.
This 2.1-km-long tunnel, scheduled to be finished around 2029, forms part of the new A8 motorway. Taking the motorway through the mountains like this will protect users from rockfalls and treacherous snow ensuring year-round safety and uninterrupted travel.
One of the country’s largest infrastructure projects
The project is a massive logistical undertaking involving the removal of huge quantities of waste materials (50,000 tonnes) as well as delivery of construction materials onsite.
As one of the largest cement producers in the country, JURA Materials is able to bring a holistic, circular solution to the project, including the processing, re-use, recycling and disposal of mineral construction waste material from the construction site.
Extensive technical tunnel expertise
The company have been providing cement (more than 50,000 tonnes), aggregates and 100,000 m3 of concrete, including readymixed concrete for the civil engineering works and more specialized concrete products to be applied as a spray (‘shotcrete’) to the tunnel wall lining. Throughout, JURA Materials had to draw on extensive technical expertise and experience of tunnel construction, including maintaining the tunnel at an ideal temperature for the application of shotcrete for the tunnel lining.
The tunnel demonstrates CRH’s ability to leverage logistics and knowledge to deliver projects of any size, creating infrastructure that connects communities and supports safe transport in the countries we operate in.
