Over the last two decades, the use of Fibre Reinforced Concrete (FRC) in tunnelling has progressed considerably and has proven to have numerous advantages. Within this scope, the ITACET Foundation and the French Association of Tunnels and Underground Space (AFTES) held a highly successful one-day training session on the Structural Use of Fibre-reinforced Concrete in Precast Segments" in Paris on 6th April 2018.
The aim of this event, which gathered over 150 participants friom varied backgrounds, was to give a detailed view of the different issues related to the use of fibre-reinforced concrete for precast segments and provide methods and tools for their design and construction.
The morning kicked off with a warm welcome from Mr Michel Deffayet, the newly elected President of AFTES and Vice Chairman of the ITA-CET Committee, Mr Eric Leca (ITA 1st Vice President) and Mr Benoit de Rivaz (Bekaert Maccaferri Underground Solutions).
The first part of the training session focussed on the main principles and design methods of FRC. Mr Pascal Guedon (Arcadis - AFTES) gave the first lecture, which outlined the global context and main issues surrounding the use of FRC. The animateur of ITA's Working Group 2 on Research, Mrs Elena Chiriotti, then gave a presentation on the lessons learnt from 20 years of FRC application, which was the subject of an ITA publication in 2016. Information on design procedures and concrete mix formation were respectively provided by Professsor Alberto Meda (University of Rome) and Mr Damien Rogat (Sigma Beton).
The afternoon was devoted to numerous case studies from France and abroad: example of the design of FRC segments, Mr Verya Nasri (Aecom), application in the Doha metro, Mr François Renault (Vinci), the Paris Metro line 14, Mr Gabriel Gauguelin (Bouygues), example of the Nice tramway, Mr Benoit de Rivaz (Bekaert Maccaferri), FRC lessons learnt from experience, segment production and quality control, Mr Colin Eddie (CECL).
Question and answer sessions enabled the participants to fully benefit from the expertise of the lecturers and provoked lively debate.
Below left: Over 150 participants attended the event.
Below right (left to right) Mr Damien Rogat (Vicat), Mr Pascal Guedon (AFTES Working Group 38), Mrs Elena Chriotti (ITA WG2) and Prof. Alberto Meda (University of Rome) answer questions put by the participants
ITA Lecturers
