Keller’s work on the prestigious Follo Line Project in Norway has won an Award of Merit in the Rail category at the Engineering News-Record Global Best Projects competition.
The annual contest honours construction and design excellence from the past year around the world and is organised by ENR, a prestigious American construction magazine, and judged by an independent panel of industry professionals.
Representatives from Keller’s Follo Line team picked up the award at a ceremony in New York City on October 2.
The Follo Line is currently the largest infrastructure project in Norway. Connecting the capital, Oslo, with the suburban town of Ski, it includes a 20km-long twin tube tunnel; the longest railway tunnel in the Nordic countries.
A complex project which demonstrated Keller collaboration and expertise at its best, Follo Line saw three different business units (and nearly 70 employees) work together to implement numerous ground engineering techniques, including soil stabilisation by jet grouting and deep soil mixing, ground anchors, micropiles and injection works.
“We developed a new way of installing pre-stressed strand anchors,” said Dominik Gächter, Branch Manager, Norway.
“Instead of drilling down up to 100m into the bedrock,they were installed in 15m-long jet grouted columns. To my knowledge this has never been done before in Norway. They’ve performed well and there has been a big reduction in drilling costs.”
Keller's work began in May 2016 and in July 2019 the last jet grouted column was completed on site (pictured above).
Dominik said: "Keller’s work on the Follo Line Project was completed after an intense three-week period in summer 2019, during which Keller executed more than 10,000m of jet grouting in both day and night shift production.
"I would like to thank the whole team on site for their commitment to making this project a success for Keller. I would also like to thank the project team from Bane NOR for the excellent co-operation and trust in Keller over the last three years. Hopefully we can support Bane NOR on other projects in Norway with our various geotechnical solutions in the future."
"Bane NOR, the Norwegian state-owned company responsible for the national railway infrastructure, is pleased to congratulate Keller with this award," said Anne Marie Dyrøy, Project Manager for the construction area close to Oslo Central Station.
“The Follo Line Project is a unique, large-scale project with challenging construction in challenging ground conditions. With good co-operation between Keller and Bane NOR and other companies involved, their part of the work has been executed to our great satisfaction."
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