Synopsis

The Gold Line Metro, Doha, Qatar is the largest Doha Metro Contract, totaling US$ 4.5 billion. It was awarded to the ALYSJ Joint Venture and is due for completion 2018 ahead of the Qatar World Cup. It has a total of 32 kilometre, 7.05m diameter twin bore tunnel drives; 10No. stations with one Emergency Exit Shaft, 20No. subway connections (up to 15m span) and 42No. cross passages (7m central span, up to 22m length).  The tunnel construction used 6No. Herenknecht, Earth Pressure Balance, tunnel boring machine (TBM); cross passages were excavated using drill and break techniques and the subways by cut and cover and sequential excavation. A total of 20 No. TBM station launches, retrievals and transfers were carried out. The presentation provides a published overview of the Gold Line metro, the ground conditions and the design and construction techniques used for the TBM drives and cross passages.    


Biodata

Sandy is a Civil and Mining Engineer with 30 years’ professional practice gained from 23 countries, mainly Hong Kong since 1995. For the past year he has been the General Manager heading the Independent Checking Engineering (ICE) Services for Underground Temporary Works design reviews for the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Lembah Kelang: Jajaran Sg. Buloh-Serdang-Putrjaya (MRT Line 2). Prior to this he was the Engineering Manager (Tunnels & Geotechnics) for the Gold Line Metro, Qatar, responsible for technical input for all sub-surface works. Since 2007 he has held Corporate and Project Management posts with Contractors and Consultants on metro, highway and drainage infrastructure tender bids and projects; prior to this he was the Team Leader for the US$ 23.5 billion Sakhalin Island pipelines, Russian Federation. He specializes in tunnelling, geotechnical engineering and engineering geology and has published over 70 technical papers on these subjects. He is a Chartered Geologist and Engineer and a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), Institution of Materials, Mining & Metallurgy (IOM3) and the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE), Geotechnical & Civil disciplines.