The professional construction company trukton will build a 1.8-kilometer-long immersed tube tunnel under the Schelt River on the ring road near Antwerp, Belgium.

The Strukton immersion project is part of the Dutch engineering company Strukton Civil, which focuses on the floating, transportation and immersion of tunnel elements and caissons. The company will develop eight tunnel elements for the Oosterweel connection. The financial details of the contract were not disclosed.

Overview of Immersive Tunnel Project

Oosterweel will connect to the highway (E34) near Blokkersdijk via a toll tunnel under Scheldt, which will connect the Antwerp ring road in Merksem and Deurne.

The Scheldt tunnel will include land tunnels and immersed tube tunnels. Each submerged element will be about 160mx42mx10m and weigh about 60,000 tons. The tunnel part will be built in the inner harbor of Zeebrugge, and then towed to Antwerp via the North Sea and Western Scheldt.

As a customer of the Oosterweel connection project, Lantis awarded the contract for the complete tunnel project to the Tijdelijke Maatschap joint company Oosterweeltunnel-COTU in mid-2020. COTU is composed of Belgian construction group BESIX, BAM contractor, DEME and JanDeNul. The contract value is 570 million euros, and the BAM contractor's share is 25%.

The Strukton immersion project was awarded a contract by COTU, which involved floating, mooring, immersion preparation and installation of eight tunnel components, which is likely to be carried out in 2024.

Strukton has more than 30 years of immersed tube tunnel business experience, and has participated in 18 immersed tube tunnel components of the 3.2 km fixed connection project of the four-lane 3.2 km of Busan-Geoje in South Korea, each with a length of 180 meters. When it opened in 2010, it was the deepest immersive roadway in the world, located 48m below the average water level. Editor/Sang Xiaomei