DirectRoute Limerick Immerses the First of Five Tunnel Elements in the Shannon

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DirectRoute successfully launched and immersed the first of five Immersed Tube Tunnel Elements in the River Shannon. The Tunnel Element, weighing in at a little over 20,000 tonnes, was renamed “Liz” by the immersion crew.



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The immersion activities started at 5:30am on Sunday when tunnel element “Liz” was floated out of the North float-out structure and connected onto two immersion pontoons via four lifting blocks suspended from overhead lifting gantries.

“Liz” was then winched across the Shannon using six winches to be docked with the South Cut & Cover tunnel and immersed into her final resting place. The immersion crew worked through the night and at 5:20am this morning (08 Sep 2008) confirmed that tunnel element “Liz” was docked with the South Cut & Cover tunnel thus allowing the survey team to enter the tunnel element to take the necessary accurate readings and measurements to confirm that all 20,000 tones of “Liz” was correctly positioned.

The immersion was carried out by Mergor/Strukton with assistance from the DirectRoute Construction Joint Venture partners Strabag, Roadbridge, Lagan and Sisk.

Liz, the first tunnel element to be immersed in the Shannon, will be bedded into the pre-dredged river channel using a sand flow process which is scheduled to start today and will take approximately two days to complete.

The immersion of the tunnel elements is the culmination of two years of design and construction work carried out by DirectRoute. The remaining four tunnel elements will be immersed in the River Shannon during the months of September and October.