The world’s longest submerged tube tunnel

The Fehmarnbelt tunnel (Fehmarn Belt combined road) built by Femern A/S, Rambøll, Arup and TEC is the world’s longest and deepest submerged tube tunnel with combined rail and road. Once completed, the tunnel will connect the town of Rødbyhavn in Denmark with the island of Fehmarn in Germany and be the shortest route between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Passengers only need 7 minutes by train or 10 minutes by car to pass the Fehmarn tunnel instead of 45 minutes if traveling by ferry, New Atlas June 25 news.

The tunnel construction process required 360,000 tons of reinforcing bars, nearly 50 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower’s metal structure. The construction site on the Danish side is as large as 373 football fields. The dredging operation of the 18 km long tunnel requires up to 70 ships to participate. In total, about 12 million m3 of soil was dug from the seabed.

The submerged tube tunnel includes 79 standard sections and 10 special sections. Each standard section weighs about 73,000 tons and is 217 m long, 42 m wide and 10 m high. The special smaller section is almost half as long but a bit wider and taller than the standard section. Tunnel sections are prefabricated on land, then placed in place by barge, and finally submerged and sealed on the seabed at depths of up to 40 m.

The cost of constructing the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is about $1.2 billion. King Frederik As expected, the Fehmarnbelt tunnel will be completed in 2029 and operate for a minimum of 120 years.