There's Nothing Like A Good Ocean Drive. Wait What?

This, is one of Europe's largest construction projects.... The Fehmarn Belt Tunnel. Check out Britain's New Super Mine!:    • Britain's New Super Mine. The Mine No One ...   The plan is to create a fixed link between the islands of Lolland in Denmark and Fehmarn in Germany, providing a much needed shortcut between Scandinavia and central Europe. This will be achieved by building the worlds longest submersed tunnel. An 18km long, prefabricated tunnel, built for both cars and rail. The tunnel will Consist of 89 giant concrete segments. At 217 meters long and 42 meters wide each one will weigh around 73,000 tons. A standard segment will consist of 2 tubes for a motorway, 2 for a railway and 1 for a service passage. A 12 meter deep trench is being dug on the sea floor and each segment will be lowered into place and sealed together using a combination of Gina gaskets and Omega seals. To put this into perspective, one of these segments is the same length or longer than, the Turning Torso tower in Sweden......2 football pitches......4 Olympic swimming pools......2 Big Bens......or 4 Leaning Towers of Pisa. The main construction site, one of the largest in Europe, is located in Rodbyhavn on the Danish side of the Fehmarn Belt. The concrete factory and the work area needed around it is huge. Roughly 1.5 million square meters. That’s around 310 football pitches. A manmade work harbour was first constructed. This was to allow materials to be delivered to the site. Some 65,000 tons of sand, cement, steel and gravel are delivered to the site every week. In fact, you could build 50 Eiffel Towers with the amount of steel going into this tunnel. It took 2 years just to construct the work area around the main tunnel factory! The site also comprises of the main tunnel entrance, or “portal,” and a village for 1300 workers, which locals have called the “tunnel town.” Behind the harbour is where the tunnel factory is being built. 6 giant production halls will cast the 89 concrete segments on a 24/7 basis. 5 halls will make 79 standard segments and 1 hall will make 10 special sized segments. These special segments are slightly wider and deeper. They will house electro-mechanical equipment and a sump pump for drainage. The tunnel factory will be the worlds largest for concrete production. It has created jobs for several thousand people and even more jobs for local companies supplying the site with raw materials goods and services. Each concrete segment will be cast incrementally over a skeleton of steel in huge casting moulds. Once cured, the moulds will be removed and the segment is then pushed forwards toward a dry dock. Even operating around the clock, each segment will take 9 weeks to complete. The rebar cage for the first element, however, has just recently been completed this spring. Once ready for transport, it is sealed with bulkheads at both ends. Pontoons are then attached and the dry dock is then filled with water. It’s then towed out to the deep end of the dock where tugboats will tow it into position in the Fehmarn Belt using a customised coordinate system and the use of underwater camera drones. The ballast tanks are then filled with water to slowly sink the segment onto the seabed. This is all done within a precision of 15 millimeters along the length of the tunnel. Once in place, the segments are pulled together. Water is then pumped out between the Gina gaskets and hydrostatic pressure will exert over 10,000 tons of pressure which will compress the seal. Another seal, called an Omega seal, is then fixed over the joint for added protection. These giant industrial rubber gaskets can twist and flex to absorb any seismic activity. Lastly, the tunnel will then be covered in a protective layer of stone. Over time, the sea will completely cover the tunnel with sand and nature will take over. The tunnel has been engineered to have a life span of around 120 years. Work on the 12 meter deep trench is currently underway. To dig the trench, Femern A/S are using a fleet of dredgers including the Simson which is one of the worlds largest back-hoe dredgers. The bucket can excavate 34 cubic meters of material with each scoop. The dredging will produce around 19 million cubic meters of sand, soil and stone. To save on materials and environmental costs, this will go towards creating 740 acres worth of nature preserve and recreational areas nearby as well as for building the ramp for the future bridges at the German site in Puttgarden. To get a better idea of just how big this factory is, lets take a dive inside...... https://femern.com/ https://www.trelleborg.com/en Footage in this video has either been obtained with permission from the original copyright owner or used in compliance with section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 where allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. No infringement intended.