An analysis of utility tunnel viability in urban areas

Canto-Perello, Julian

doi:10.1080/10286600600562129

Cited by 54 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Other utilidors have been concentrated in the areas of university campuses, hospitals, building complexes, airports, nuclear power plants and industrial facilities. This is consistent with the first motivation for utility tunnels in the past, the elimination of utility cuts and the resulting traffic congestion, improving environmental sustainability and aesthetic community appearances (Canto-Perello and Curiel-Esparza, 2006). However, the success of utility tunnels in many cities, like Madrid and Barcelona, has encouraged officials to extend these underground facilities to where it now is found throughout the city, although they are normally located along the main arteries.…”

Section: Utility Tunnel Practice In Urban Areassupporting

confidence: 62%

Assessing governance issues of urban utility tunnels

Canto-Perello

2013

Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Throughout the centuries, utilities have been an important and sometimes decisive instrument in human development. Municipal policy-makers and engineers have been playing a key role in improving management and technology of urban utilities. With the growth of urban areas and the corresponding increased demand for utility services, available underground space will continue to diminish. Therefore, planning for an urban subsurface sustainable future consists of the ability to lessen the use of traditional trenching techniques and developing coordinated installations of utilities. As an innovative problem-solving technique, utility tunnels become inevitable to reduce congestion of the shallow underground. Utilities management becomes more complex as many public authorities and private companies are involved. Because of the complexity of ownership of the various utility tunnel potential occupants, some form of governmental ownership would probably be the most practicable, although other forms (individual private, joint private, or condominium) of ownership must be analysed. Whatever the form of financing and ownership, some single entity must be made responsible not only for initial construction but also for security, access control, and operation and maintenance throughout the life of the project. The purpose of this paper is to point out some of the utility tunnels innovation and organizational advantages to encourage municipal engineers to demand sustainable solutions for services congestion. Proper adequate governance and security management should be key elements of every decision undertaken in utility tunnels.

show abstract

Section: Utility Tunnel Practice In Urban Areassupporting

confidence: 62%

Assessing governance issues of urban utility tunnels

Canto-Perello

2013

Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In the tests, two cable samples were adjoining and roughly occupied an area of 10 cm × 12 cm. This meant that the exposed area of the samples to the radiation source was about 60π cm 2 . Two thermocouples were fixed on the surface of the two cables, respectively.…”

Section: Bench-scale Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Urban utility tunnels are joint-use underground passages for accommodating multiple utilities such as water, sewerage, gas, electrical power, telephone and heat supply. Currently, for sustainable development, building these tunnels has been regarded as a problem-solving technique in more and more countries [1,2]. Alongside this rapid development, catastrophic tunnel fire incidents have motivated abundant research, and their systematic reviews have been well presented in two professional books [3,4], both with a focus on transportation-related tunnels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Scale Analysis of the Fire Problems in an Urban Utility Tunnel

Zhou

Yang

et al. 2019

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Building utility tunnels has been widely adopted as an important solution for the sustainable development of cities, but their unique fire problems have not attracted enough attention to date. With the purpose of preliminarily understanding the fire phenomena in a utility tunnel, this study performed a comprehensive analysis, including the burning behaviour of accommodated cables, hot gas temperature field and enhanced fuel burning rates based on bench-scale, full-scale and model-scale fire tests. The critical exposed radiative heat flux for the 10-kV power cable to achieve complete burning was identified. The whole burning process was divided into five phases. The cable’s noteworthy hazards and dangerous fire behaviours were also examined. The two-dimensional (2D) gas temperature fields and longitudinal maximum temperature distributions were investigated carefully, after which a versatile model was derived. The model predicted the maximum temperature attenuation of both upstream and downstream flows reasonably well. Finally, the phenomenon of enhanced fuel burning was explored. A multivariate cubic function that considers the global effects of relative width, height and distance was further proposed to estimate the enhancement coefficient. The current findings can provide designers and operators with valuable guidance for the integrated promotion of utility tunnels’ fire safety level.

show abstract

“…However the lack of data and the difficulty in quantifying the intangibles must be taken into account in urban planning. The intangibles, like noise and aesthetic considerations, traffic delays and disturbances due to street cuts, long term deterioration of streets are not quantified [36]. Today, we have a new dimension: quantity has made way for quality.…”

Section: First Questionnaire and Decision Hierarchy Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting utilities placement techniques in urban underground engineering

Curiel-Esparza

Canto-Perello

2013

Archives of Civil and Mechanical Engineering

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Placement of utilities has not been generally accomplished in any sustainable technique resulting in a veritable maze in high density urban areas. As underground space scarcity grows in our cities due to the increasing demands for utility services, subsurface facilities such as utility tunnels are becoming more efficient in providing the required infrastructure. There is a growing public awareness of aesthetic considerations and impatience with street cuts and their associated costs, traffic interferences, noise and accidental utility cuts. Unfortunately the lack of data and the difficulty in quantifying the intangibles has made it impossible to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure of overall negative impact on the urban environment of street cuts. Due to this, current practices of traditional trenching depending only on cost indicators remain as first option in urban planning instead of more sustainable techniques, like utility tunnels. However, it is well known that intangible costs to the public and the utilities might make the utility tunnel concept to be economically feasible in the long run. This paper presents a methodology based on AHP and Delphi processes for the selection of utilities placement techniques in which the intangibles are also assessed to avoid short-sighted urban underground planning. HighlightsQuantifying intangibles is a key factor to study negative impact of street cuts. Only use of cost indicators make traditional trenching to remain as first option. Intangible costs might make utility tunnel concept to be feasible in the long term. A methodology based on AHP and Delphi avoids short-sighted underground planning.

show abstract

An analysis of utility tunnel viability in urban areas

Cited by 54 publications

References 11 publications

Assessing governance issues of urban utility tunnels

Assessing governance issues of urban utility tunnels

A Multi-Scale Analysis of the Fire Problems in an Urban Utility Tunnel

Selecting utilities placement techniques in urban underground engineering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About