During an international summit held in Paris during February of this year, the French President and the Italian Infrastructure and Transport Minister signed a co-agreement, initiating the commencement of a new €7billion high capacity railway project to connect Lyon and Turin. The new line is hoped to boost trade throughout southern Europe, allowing freight and passenger travel to increase.
87km of the 140km route will run through the French Alps; including an impressive 57km-long stretch of underground tunnel between St Jean de Maurienne, France and Chiomonte in Italy. Boring will take place from 17 points along the route, and it will take over five years to complete construction, with another three for testing.
MineARC is scheduled to provide a total of 14 refuge chambers to the project over the next three years.
February saw the delivery of the first MineARC tunnelling chamber at St Martin de la Porte site, two hours southwest of Lyon. The chamber features a unique self-contained misting system, the first of its kind in MineARC’s extensive range. Developed to assist in heat suppression, the system emits a fine mist around the exterior of the chamber. The mist is set to a droplet size that will flash evaporate under high temperatures, creating a temperature barrier around the chamber which, in turn, maintains an internal environment that is life-sustainable.
The system is manually activated by occupants when external temperatures reach above 50°C, as indicated by a temperature gauge on the interior wall of the chamber.
MineARC manufactures a range of chambers for various tunnelling requirements. They perform the safe life-preserving functions as standard mine-refuge chambers, however, can be custom built to virtually any configuration and mount.