Lantania gets the 2019 Potencia Award in the tunnels and underground works category

• This award was granted for the construction of the Corno tunnel, carried out in collaboration with Construcciones Taboada y Ramos

Madrid, 12 November 2019. Lantania was honoured at the 13th Potencia Awards for Public Works Machinery and Civil Engineering (2019), for its construction work on the Corno tunnel in Ourense (Spain). This project for Adif, which the company carried out via a Temporary Joint Venture with the entity Construcciones Taboada y Ramos, has gotten the award in the Tunnels and Underground Works category.

These awards, which are granted by Potencia magazine and its associated publishing company, TPI, recognize the quality and innovation efforts of Spanish construction and engineering firms in the design and commissioning of large infrastructure projects.

The awards jury panel has lauded the safety and design, the technical efficiency, and the innovation of the solution used to build this infrastructure, as well as the project’s respect for the environment. This jury panel is comprised of the machine park managers for the largest construction companies in Spain and the managers of the main industry associations, and was leaded by the president of Seopan, Julián Núñez, and the president of the National Construction Confederation, Juan Luis Lazcano.

The Corno Tunnel is located in the municipality of Laza, in the province of Ourense (northwest of Spain). It belongs to the network of high-performance rail infrastructures, the North-Northwest Rail Corridor, specifically, the section between Lubián and Ourense, and it is part of the Platform Construction Project for the North-Northwest High-Speed Corridor. With its 8,5 kilometres, it is the longest of those being constructed in the Zamora-Ourense section. The work begun in July 2012 and was handed off to Adif in July of this year.

The excavation of the tunnel was mostly executed from underground. The so-called “New Austrian Tunnelling Method” was used for its construction. During phase one, the upper half of the tunnel (the crown) was excavated, which allowed crews to open the upper part of the tunnel in order to facilitate access for heavy machinery. During the second phase, the bottom half of the tunnel (the bench) was excavated. Once the perforation was completed, the draining, waterproofing, concrete works for the bench and invert, and the lining with fibre-reinforced sprayed concrete was executed, which yielded the final section where the installation of the tracks, electrification components, signage, and communications components could be carried out.