The widened Suez Canal, located at Ismailia in Egypt, is now providing extra capacity for vessels, having been officially opened in August 2015. The waterway has great significance for world trade and has been widened at certain points and also expanded.
The canal connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea and is the shortest sea route from Asia to Europe. However, the reopening of the Suez Canal does not mean that all construction work on the waterway has been completed. Work is still ongoing to construct a new road tunnel that runs 25m below the bed of the Suez Canal and 70m below ground level. This is currently being built north of the city of Ismailia.
For the ventilation system BAUER has driven four shafts with a depth of up to 85m and a diameter of 21m using diaphragm wall technology. In addition, Bauer has constructed a diaphragm wall around 110,000m2 in size and up to 50m deep to serve as start and target shafts for the tunnel boring machine. The scope of works also includes the construction of a soft gel blanket covering 21,250 2 and the installation of 150 temporary anchors. Among other equipment, a BAUER MC 128 and an MC 96 duty-cycle crane, both equipped with a BC 40 cutter, have been used along with two BAUER BG 28 drilling rigs.
Once it is completed in 2018, the twin-tube Ismailia road tunnel will run for some 6km underneath the Suez Canal, including the tunnel approaches.
