The Implenia and Frutiger Gruppe consortium accepted the TBM at a ceremony at Herrenknecht’s Schwanau headquarters on Monday.
The 12.3m diameter TBM is 120m long, weighs 1850 tonnes and has a maximum propulsive force of 95000kN.
It will now be dismantled and transported to Göschenen in Switzerland for assembly. It is scheduled to be launched in February to excavate a tunnel of approximately 7km.
Lot 241 also includes excavation for two underground ventilation centres, as well as construction of an underground concrete plant and production halls for tubing rings and service ducts in former military caverns.
The new Gotthard tunnel runs 70m to the east of the existing road tunnel which opened in 1980 and carries traffic in both directions. Once the new tunnel is completed, the older tunnel will be refurbished and each tunnel will have a single lane of traffic.
Implenia Switzerland’s head of tunnelling, Daniel Spörri, said the company was “pleased to be able to make a valuable contribution to ensuring the mobility of future generations with our proven team and our many years of expertise”.
“The second tube of the Gotthard Road Tunnel will make it possible to subject the existing tube to a comprehensive renovation from 2030 onwards and will contribute to improving road traffic safety on the busy north-south axis in the long term,” he said.
