A STUDY ON HIGHWAY TUNNEL IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Tunneling in construction is considered new in Malaysia. However, there has been a considerable amount of tunneling activities going on in Malaysia underground development for various infrastructure projects, as the commencement of Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) on June 2007 and the previous Penchala Link Highway Tunnel project. The Malaysia Government put in a huge effort to advance highway tunnel technology, which improved the construction industry. For that reason, Kuala Lumpur’s Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART ) and Penchala Link Highway Tunnel were selected as case studies to investigate the method of construction implemented as both are sited on different geological conditions. The SMART was the first project implemented the slurry face machine in order excavate 9.7 km long tunnel which incorporates a dual function of storm water tunnel and a motorway, with the main intension of diverting the large volumes of flood water away from the city centre. It is located on Karstic Limestone, with high ground water table consisting of cavities which contain water drained from the surface. The twin bore tunnel Penchala Link Highway Tunnel, constructed on February 13th 2002 and completed on May 2003, used the conventional drill and blasting method throughout the entire length of 720 meters sited on granite geological condition. It was constructed due to the inability of the existing road network to cope with the rapid development in Penchala. Various factors such as geological conditions, planning and design aspects and operation system, were taken into consideration in order to determine the tunneling method and its effects as the method was selected. However, that is not to say that the case studies have no other interesting characteristics; there are a few unique to them, but because they are irrelevant to the study, they are studied in less detail. Although geographical conditions play an important role for the construction method selection, stable economy status, strong government policies, as well as the current local issues were the driving force behind the implementation of an advanced technology into local construction site. These were the external forces that influenced the selection of method application. Further thought need to be done on the planning and design, machineries selection and operation system, which affects the selection of the tunneling construction method. These are important in ensuring the efficiency throughout the tunneling process. Besides, the challenges in the next phase of the tunneling construction development, focusing in Malaysian construction industry are to acknowledge the criteria that influence the ease of process in the construction project. The development of advance technology in tunneling was the stepping stone in order to move towards automation in construction. It gave a positive reflection on construction standard in term of final product quality, less depending on foreign manpower usage, shorten the construction period and long term saving projection. As a result, through a longer exploration of potential alteration in mechanization and by having appropriate mechanize activities focusing in tunneling construction, the construction environment can be reformulaized. Furthermore, by having significant improvements in task performance, the tunneling construction industry will be able to yield results within current and expected economic, political and social constraints.