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Shallow Cover Microtunnel Under The Belt Parkway Nyc

Portions of the Borough of Queens in New York City have historically been plagued with flooding during major storm events, since most of the Borough is relatively flat and at low elevations. The Borough borders the East River and Long Island Sound to the north and Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. For many years the Borough has experienced major storm water relief projects consisting of large reinforced concrete single and multiple barrel sewers.

On November 24, 1998 the City of New York Department of Design & Construction, (NYC DDC), received bids for project SE-552D, Storm Sewers Crossing the Belt Parkway. The low bid received was from Northeast Construction Inc., Lakewood, New Jersey for $2,689,000. The unusual project consisted of twin drives of 48" Ø RCP under the Belt Parkway, open cut 48" Ø RCP pipe and two major concrete chambers designed to interconnect with existing storm box sewers providing much needed additional storm water relief to an area of Queens adjacent to John F. Kennedy Airport.

The NYC DDC engineers had to provide a conduit under the Belt Parkway of sufficient capacity for storm relief while meeting existing storm chamber inverts on both sides. They determined that the required capacity could be met by installing two 48" Ø round pipes. The Belt Parkway is a heavily traveled, six lane highway traversing a southern corridor through the Borough of Brooklyn and Queens. Therefore, New York City traffic engineers would not permit closure or narrowing of the Belt Parkway traffic lanes. Further, physical constraints prohibited the construction of a temporary bypass or detour road, effectively eliminating the open cut construction method.

The engineers chose microtunneling for its safety and accuracy. Unfortunately, only 4 1⁄2 feet of cover would be available while tunneling under the parkway. In recognition of the absence of the desirable 3 pipe diameters of cover, they chose to require pretreatment of the granular soils with chemical grout to prevent heave and/or settlement of the parkway roadbed.

To meet the project requirements, Northeast Construction Inc. subcontracted the chemical grout task to Hayward Baker, Inc. Hayward Baker's and Northeast Construction's engineers chose to circumferentially pre-grout the soils immediately outside the pipe limits. Since the parkway could not be occupied during construction, Hayward Baker utilized the Tube-a-Manchette method. Thirteen (13) pipes were horizontally drilled from both the jacking and receiving shafts, (see Fig. "A"), and approximately 80,000 gallons of sodium silicate grout were injected into the granular soils until permeability tests yielded the desired results.

After several weeks of drilling and grouting, Northeast Construction Inc. mobilized its Herrenknecht AVN 1200T to the site together with Derrick soil separation system. On September 15, 1999, after working late hours in a race to beat the arrival of hurricane Floyd, Northeast Construction completed the second 183 lineal foot microtunnel drive and extracted the MTBM from the receiving pit.

The jacked pipe and finished product line was a Vianini 48" Ø RCP with 6" wall, steel bell and concrete spigot. The AVN 1200T was equipped with a soft ground head with 26 spade tools. The AVN 1200T incorporates a new design with peripheral drive motors, thereby permitting limited access to the tunnel face through a center pressure bulkhead hatch.

The SE-552D contract concludes a series of four (4) recent NYC DDC projects constructed to provide additional storm sewer capacity to the southeast portion of Queens.

Assistant Commissioner George Cowan, P.E. headed the design group for the NYC DDC, while Resident Engineer John Byrne, P.E., Supervising Engineer Victor Ghazarian, P.E. and Borough Deputy Director William Svilar, P.E. administered the construction activities for the NYC DDC. Northeast Construction Inc. managed the project with Superintendent George Gutierrez and Project Manager

Richard Palmer, P.E.
As Prepared By:
Alberto G. Solana, P.E.
Vice President of Engineering