WCA July 2013

news

THE largest infrastructure project in western Europe, London’s Crossrail, is a 118km high-speed rail link across London. Five tunnel-boring machines are working 24 hours a day to produce 21km of twin-bore tunnels beneath the city. The tunnels are strengthened with ArcelorMittal steel fibres. Over 11,000 tonnes of bespoke steel fibres are being supplied from the ArcelorMittal wire plants in Sheffield, England, and Bissen, Luxembourg. Crossrail’s eastern tunnels, from the Limmo Peninsula to Farringdon, and from Pudding Mill Lane to Stepney Green, will use 4,000 tonnes of ArcelorMittal HE++90/60 steel fibres to reinforce the segments, and over 1,000 tonnes of HE+55/35 fibres in sprayed concrete will be supplied to contractor Dragados Sisk. In the 2.6km tunnel from Plumstead to North Woolwich, around 1,000 tonnes of HE++90/60 steel fibres in segments Two new grades of high performance, high tensile strength steel fibre were developed specifically for Crossrail. The products, HE +55/35 and HE ++90/60, will reinforce the sprayed concrete and tunnel lining segments. ArcelorMittal – Luxembourg Website : www.arcelormittal.com On the right track ❍ Crossrail’s Thames Tunnel team begins main civil works at the Plumstead Portal site to construct the launch site for the third pair of tunnelling machines. Photograph courtesy of Crossrail Umbilical for offshore Malaysia Nexans is making inroads into the Malaysia offshore sector with the award of a major contract from Persada Engineering. The French company is to supply a 22km electro/hydraulic subsea umbilical for Sarawak Shell Berhad’s F29 field development. The subsea cable will be installed at a depth of around 100m to provide communication and control functions for the F29 field development. The F29 umbilical will be manufactured at Nexans’ specialised facility in Halden, Norway. Nexans – France Website : www.nexans.com are being supplied to contractor Hochtief Murphy. ArcelorMittal’s WireSolutions fibres sales team, technical support, research and development, and production teams worked together to supply the steel for the contract. They also worked with and provided advice to the material engineers and production managers in the three joint ventures involved in the tunnel and stations projects.

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Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2013