Technical Tours
Technical Tour 1
Title: Urban Underground Limestone Mine
Tour Guides: Vulcan Materials Midwest Division: Jill Downer, Manager, Land Use and Business Development; Richard Spry, Area Operations Manager; and Jon Carmack, Bolingbrook Plant Manager. ARMA Representative: Chuck Dowding, Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University
Date: Saturday, 23 June 2012; 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Cost: $75 - Price includes transportation and box lunch. Limited to 35 participants
Description: This field trip will include a motorized tour of an underground limestone mine near Bolingbrook, IL owned by Vulcan Materials Corp. This facility is located beneath a mined-out surface mine that is producing aggregate in the Galena Platteville formation. It is one of a half a dozen such quarries in the Chicago metropolitan area, which have been developed underground to maintain a sustainable and reasonably-priced supply of aggregate despite urban growth and encroachment. The tour will consist of an above-ground orientation and a below-ground motorized tour. Orientation will include discussion of urban mine economics, sustainability, as well as rock mechanics, pillar stability and blasting considerations.
Tentative Schedule:
8:30 a.m. Assemble in lobby of Westin Hotel
9:00 - 10:00 a.m. Drive to Bolingbrook
10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Orientation
11:00 to 12:00 noon Tour mine
12:00 to 2:00 p.m. Lunch and tour (Romeo Prairie Nature Preserve or Midewin Tall Grass Prairie Park)
2:00 – 4:00 p.m. Return to Westin
Technical Tour 2
Title: Fermilab Technical Tour
Tour Guide: Joe Kovacich, MWH Americas, Inc., Chicago (tentative)
Date: Sunday, 24 June 2012; 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Cost: $75 - Price includes transportation
Description:The NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) Project is located at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois and is an addition to the existing high‑energy physics program on the Fermilab site. The NuMI Project consists of various experimental physics laboratory facilities that are housed in an underground complex extending over 1,200 m (4,000 ft) in length and at a depth of 15 to 110 m (50 to 350 ft) below ground. The system of tunnels and halls is excavated through soft ground, mixed-face, dolomitic limestones, siltstones, and shales. Construction cost for the civil contract was more than $30.5 million. Some of the major project components include:
- Two 6.7 m (22 ft) diameter access shafts;
- Soft ground and mixed-face tunnels;
- Drill & blast tunnels;l
- 1000 m (3,300 ft) of 6.7 m (22 ft) diameter TBM tunnel; and
- Two large experiment halls, each 67 m (225 ft) long, 8.2 m (27 ft) wide, and 9 to 18 m (30 to 60 ft) high, one excavated under low rock cover and the other excavated in shales at 100 m (350 ft) below grade. Special consideration had to be paid to low rock cover and ground inflow conditions.
The tour will include an overview and description of the NuMI Project and the background and purpose of the experiment facilities will also be described. Visitors to the project will have an opportunity to see the experiment halls and learn about some of the technical challenges facing design and construction of large openings in shale.
Technical Tour 3
Title: Chicago's Tunnel and Reservoir Project (TARP)
Tour Leaders: Yet to be determined (depending on project availability and other factors) but would most likely include at least 2 individuals from MWH staff who have been involved with the projects
Date: Thursday, 28 June 2012
Cost: $75 - Price includes transportation and box lunch
Description: The Tunnel and Reservoir Project (TARP, also commonly known as the Deep Tunnel Project or the Chicago Deep Tunnel) is one of the largest civil works projects ever constructed. It serves the 375-sq-mile Greater Chicago Metropolitan region and aims to reduce flooding from storm events and to reduce the harmful effects of untreated floodwater and sewage flowing uncontrolled into the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. Commissioned in the mid-1970s, completion of the system is not anticipated until 2029 but substantial portions of the system have already opened and are currently operational.
This tour will include an overview and description of the TARP system, its history, design and construction milestones and challenges, with a focus on technical aspects and details of interest to ARMA symposium participants. We will visit two of the quarry sites, McCook and Thornton, which are to be used as storage reservoirs. At each of these, we will observe and discuss rock slope stability issues and stabilization measures, construction of the tunnels connecting to pump stations and large diameter conveyance system, and in situ stress issues that have posed design and construction challenges. Two of the TARP pump-station caverns are located at McCook.
Principal features of the project include:
- Over 120 miles of 24- to 35-ft diameter excavated tunnels, bored in carbonate rock by TBMs up to 350-ft below ground;
- Hundreds of vertical drop shafts and connecting tunnels to divert storm flows into the main tunnel system from existing combined sewer overflow outlets;
- Four underground pumping stations, with capacities of 710, 320, 240, and 150 million gallons per day (MGD), to lift the collected wet-weather flows to existing sewage treatment plants and/or to storage reservoirs; and
- Three quarried reservoirs with storage capacities of 83,000, 40,000, and 27,000 acre-ft and one underground mined storage reservoir with a 2,000-acre-ft capacity.
This will be an All-day Event - but the intent is to try to return to the Westin Hotel before rush hour traffic gets too congested.
Tentative/Provisional Schedule:
Assembly and pre-trip orientation at Westin, Michigan Avenue (9:00-9:30 am)
- Overview of TARP system and history
- Objectives of field visits to components of TARP system
- Provide hand-out materials
Bus to McCook Quarry (9:30-10:30 am)
McCook Quarry (10:30-12:00)
- Overlook of quarry; description of history of quarry and its TARP function
- Quarry high wall stability issues and stabilization measures
- View of on-going construction activities
- In situ stress issues and closure of Joliet Road
- Pack lunches distributed
Bus to Thornton Quarry (12:00 noon-1:00 pm)
Thornton Quarry (1:00 pm-3:00 pm)
- Overlook of quarry; description of quarry history and TARP function
- Construction of RCC dam to separate two quarry lobes
- In situ stress issues
- View of on-going construction activities
Bus back to Westin Hotel, Michigan Avenue (3:00-4:00 pm)