The challenges involved in concrete works of Marmaray immersed tunnel with service life beyond 100 years

Marmaray immersed tube crossing, located at the entrance of Bosphorus Strait of Istanbul, will be one of the unique infrastructure facility bringing great engineering challenges in immersed tunnel technology. The employer requires a minimum design life of 100 years for the immersed tunnel structure that will be under exposure of the highest saline water pressure at the depth of 58 m that has never been experienced yet in the history of immersed tube systems. Since the structural concrete is to be subjected to extremely aggressive environmental conditions during expected long-term service life, the quality assurance of the immersed tunnel has been ensured by setting a series of effective technical requirements taking into account the potential durability risks and predictive models in design phase, outputs of pre-testing activities and potential difficulties at construction period. The objective of this paper is to present some major steps involved in concrete works of this megaproject by giving the highlights from laboratory scale researches to the execution of the work at construction site. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.