Detroit Windsor Car Tunnel

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Seepage Control Contract

Construction of the tunnel began in the summer of 1928, at approximately the same time on both sides of the river. The completion of the tunnel was an engineering feat unparalleled at the time, which combined three different tunneling methods. On each side of the river, a cut and cover method was used on the sections from where the open cut trenches end to the harbor line. Earth was dug away by muckers or sandhogs that used manually operated knives to cut a path for the giant shield wall. The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel was formally dedicated on Saturday, November 1, 1930. President Herbert Hoover turned a "golden key" in Washington that rang bells in both Detroit and Windsor to mark the opening of the tunnel. Today, approximately 27,000 to 29,000 vehicles pass through the tunnel on a daily basis, and the tunnel handles over nine million vehicles per year, of which 95% are cars and 5% are trucks.

As part of overall renovations to the tunnel ACT was awarded a major seepage control program designed to reduce water infiltration into the tunnel. The program was designed to encapsulate residual water within reservoirs between the steel liner and internal concrete shell of the tunnel using acrylamide chemical grout.

ACT accomplished the project by drilling grout holes through the internal concrete shell of the tunnel terminating at the steel liner. Polyurethane chemical grout rings were installed to provide bulkheads and containment for the subsequent acrylamide injected. The acrylamide solution grout was centrally batched and pumped over 1,000 feet as a 2 component system to the point of injection where it passed through a static mixer prior to entering the grout holes. The project involved work in the exhaust duct, roadway and fresh air duct of the tunnel. In .addition to the grouting program, and as part of the overall seepage control system, drainage holes were drilled through the concrete lining and connected to a 6 inch insulated water collection pipe using insulated aliva drains. The water collection system contained automated valves and a hardware control panel to operate the valves and circulate water to prevent the system from freezing. Grouting operations were monitored in real time using electronic flowmeters, pressure transmitters and a xy-recorder.

All work was performed under a strictly enforced Detroit-Windsor Tunnel Confined Space Entry Program.