The bypass of Žilina
fascinates the drivers
D3 Highway, Žilina (Strážov) - Žilina (Brodno)
Beyond two bridges, a flyover bridge over the Hričov Dam and a twin-tube tunnel in Považský Chlmec, lies the city of Žilina.
| Project details | |
|---|---|
| Location: | Žilina, Slovakia |
| Investor: | National Motorway Company of Slovakia |
| Contractor: | HOCHTIEF CZ, Division Traffic Infrastructure (in joint-venture with EUROVIA SK and SMS) |
| Project type: | Traffic infrastructure |
| Construction period: | 07/2014–07/2017 |
| Description: |
Together with two elevated road systems, one of which overcomes, on its 57 pillars, the adjacent Hričov dam, and the other one overcomes the Kysuca river, the tunnel is a part of the 4.25 km long Žilina ring road system. The matter concerns an absolutely new D3 motorway section, which increased the fluency as well as speed of the road traffic operation in the north-south direction and thus it improved the connection of Bratislava to Poland and the Czech Republic. The inhabitants of Žilina appreciated especially reduction of noise and emissions in the areas through which the traffic was passing until the construction of the new ring road system. The tunnel was unique already during its construction. With regard to the tight time schedule and among other things also the small height of the overburden, a building pit was excavated approximately in the middle of the tunnel route, and this building pit subsequently made it possible to open other workplaces. The driving by using the New Austrian Tunnelling Method was therefore performed from up to 8 tunnel headings at the same time, with the use of 35 machines and lasted for 11 months only in spite of the fact that the volume of the rock removed achieved up to 390,000 m³. In spite of the extent of the construction works it was possible to minimise the environmental load of the works. The sealing of the building pit with fly ash for example in the adjacent valley supported the natural renewal of the ground water regime. And local people confirmed (already several days after the work completion) that wild animals started to return to the area above the tunnel. Most technological equipment was only installed in the tunnel after the laying of the cement-concrete coverage of the road, i.e. in the very last phase of the construction. It makes Považský Chlmec one of the safest tunnels in Europe and only the third tunnel in Slovakia in which also transport of dangerous goods is to be permitted (each vehicle with dangerous goods must be visibly signed and the cameras on the tunnel portals scan and register these signs). The video control system detects automatically also the risk situations which may be represented in the tunnel for example by wild animals, walkers, slowly going or stopped vehicles, vehicles in the opposite direction, suddenly reduced speed of a line of cars or lost cargo. Other safety systems of the tunnel include fire ventilation, hydrants, tunnel public address system, warning illumination or smoke detectors thanks to which it is possible to observe development of smoke in the tunnel. The entire construction was completed, including the drawing up of the design documentation, in 40 months, and at one moment there worked as many as 240 workers. HOCHTIEF CZ executed the project as the technical leader of the consortium. Považský Chlmec in numbers:
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