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COB at the WTC Dubai 2018

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At the World Tunnel Congress in Dubai (21-26 April) the COB network was present in many ways. As visitors and exhibitors, and as speakers at a working groups and technical sessions. They met with their international colleagues to discuss new developments and opportunities. A brief overview.

Presentations

  • Karin de Haas gave a presentation at ITA Working Group 2 (Research) about the long-term vision on tunnels of the COB network. The group stated that it would be of great interest for the ITA community to challenge this vision but that this might need a new working group. The leader of Working Group 2 will point this out as a suggestion in the Executive Council.
  • Sallo van der Woude and Jan van Steirteghem gave a presentation in ITA Working Group 6 (Maintenance and repair). Sallo talked about the renovation challenge in The Netherlands and called for knowledge sharing between projects. Jan’s presentation was about the renovation of the Velsertunnel.
  • Johan Kuppens, Patrick Maessen and Karin de Haas were present at ITA Working Group 22 (Information modelling in tunnelling). This group shares the ambitions of the COB network regarding standardisation. Johan Kuppens is going to represent the COB.
  • At the conference Karin de Haas gave a presentation about the long-term vision on tunnels of the COB network. As a comment the vice-minister of Saudi Arabia stated that ‘this is exactly what the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia needs’. He stated to contact Karin by email to discuss possible collaboration.
  • Paul Janssen also gave a presentation at the conference. He spoke about the contractual part of energy reduction in tunnels and shared the output from different recent tunnel projects.
  • At all conference days Hans de Man had a poster presentation about the digital tunnel twin.
  • Bart Hendrix gave a presentation at the conference about resilient materials in tunnelling (historic perspective and modern insichts).
  • During the opening of the second conference day Rosanne Verloop reported on setting up ITA Young Members in The Netherlands.

Social event

In collaboration with BESIX and KIVI TTOW the COB hosted a special reception on Tuesday April 24th. National and international relations were invited to talk, meet and mingle on the topics presented by the COB network. There were 35 international guests and 35 guests from the Netherlands and Belgium.

Site-visit

BESIX and KIVI TTOW had organized a site-visit on Sunday April 22nd. Twenty-six participants visited the storm water tunnel near Dubai which is being built by Besix.

Press release

At the end of the WTC the ITA published a press release about the conference in which the digital tunnel twin and Karin de Haas were mentioned.
>> See press release

Special meetings

In between presentations members of the COB met with several international projects and organisations to discuss possible collaborations. For example, a team from the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is interested in a joined attempt to optimize the energy-plans for the Fehrmanbelt tunnel. With representatives of the Swiss Center of Applied Underground Technologies (SCAUT) the COB discussed the possibility of organising a round table meeting with the installation industry if they could form a group together. The Centre d’Etudes des Tunnels (CETU) shares the problems and ambitions of the COB network regarding tunnel lighting. They agreed to try and set-up a joint technical working group to share information, formulate a road map and divide the workload.

Conference November 27th 2018: Resilient and sustainable underground assets

After the successful first bi-national conference on tunnel renovations in Delft (‘Grenzeloos renoveren’, May 30th 2017), the Minister of Brussels Pascal Smet invited the organisers to host a second conference in Brussels. Details of this conference were discussed at the WTC in Dubai and will be published later this year.

(Photos: COB)