11 THE COQUELLES TERMINAL

THE COQUELLES TERMINAL

 The Coquelles Terminal is the largest complex of land transport in Europe with an area of 700 ha equivalent to that of a large international airport.

ITS FUNCTION

  • Get the traffic from a 3-way Highway (3450 vehicles an hour) onto the rail shuttles.
  • Inject these shuttles into the tunnels with the constraint of 35 minutes from platform to platform.
  • Ensure the maintenance and the garage of the shuttles.

ITS CHALLENGE

The scope of work is not exceptional, while the techniques used and the lead time of 5 years remains typical but with some specific aspects.

The real challenge to the construction of the French Terminal is elsewhere:

  • It lies in its integration in the full realization of a transport system which is a prototype with no pre-existing reference model.
  • The effective realization of the work depends on the precise definition of the elements of the system that occured progressively well after the start of the work.

The Terminal team takes up this challenge by its overall vision of the key role that the French Terminal occupies on the fixed link.

ITS WORK

  • THE EARTHWORKS

11 million m3 of earth are moved on the Terminal – the volume of 7 pyramids of Cheops.

  • THE CONSOLIDATION OF SOIL

Over 350 hectares, the Terminal is based on very compressible soils of bogs and swamps which must be consolidated before any construction of permanent  engineering  works to avoid them sinking by a metre or more.

This consolidation is performed on 4 successive zones by setting up a 50-cm layer of draining sand and 2,400 km of vertical drains, and then a temporary overload of 1.1 million m3 of sand moved every 6 months from one area to another.

  • THE PERMANENT DRAINAGE

The collected waters are lifted up to 5 raised basins of 100,000 m2 in surface by 6 pumping stations of 85 000 m3/h.

  • CIVIL ENGINEERING WORKS

55 000 m2 of roadways and bridges, 5 000 ml of platforms with 24 ramps and a viaduct of 36  spans.

  • BUILDINGS

40 buildings with a total surface of 31000 m2 including:

  • The administrative buildings,
  • An auxiliary traffic control building,
  • A shuttles maintenance building of 10,000 m2 building,
  • THE ELECTRIC FACILITIES

A 400 MW power plant ( = the consumption of the city of Lille).

  • THE WINDBREAK WALLS

These walls have a surface of 25 000 m2, with a length of 2.5 km are erected to avoid destabilization of the shuttles by the high winds. They resist pressure to wind up to 112 kg/m2.

 

 

Conception, construction et chantier du Tunnel sous la Manche