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  Agua Negra Andes Crossing - Trimming a long tunnel project to economic feasibility without giving up technical quality

  The link from the important central South American region to the Pacific, by means of a 14 km long highway tunnel under the Agua Negra pass, has been subject of studies for a long time. The tunnel is situated at an altitude between 3600 and 4100 m asl. and has to fulfill extreme climatic and operational requirements. The newly undertaken design work focuses on the review of former project solutions, in order to reduce construction and operating costs. The paper shows how it was possible to rationalize the various project elements, by concentrating to the essentials, by means of the following issues: 1) Adapting the ventilation system; 2) Using simple and uniform design patterns; 3) Flexibility in execution (excavation by drill and blast); 4) Using standard methods and refrain from sophistication. 4) Simple operating modes (no bidirectional traffic). The rationalization has been obtained by means of provisions along the whole chain “project requirements – concept – design – execution – operation”. The improvement has been possible thanks to the full reconciliation with the client and allows cutting the initially estimated cost to half.

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