TEC Tunnel Engineering consultants

Project description

The new airport will replace the Mexico City International Airport, which is at full capacity. The new airport will have three runways to start and will be expandable to up to six runways. With three runways in simultaneous use the airport will be able to serve up to 50,000,000 passengers per year. The site for the new airport is located to the east of Mexico City. It is positioned within an area that was formally covered by Lake Texcoco; the lake has now dried up but the resulting ground and groundwater conditions are challenging.

The design of the tunnels is challenging due to the soft soil conditions, heavy airplane loads crossing the tunnels and severe seismic conditions. Although the desired longitudinal stiffness to spread airplane loads is not compatible with the desired flexibility to absorb seismic surface waves an optimal joint distance was proposed by TEC.

Scope of Work

TEC is a sub consultant for the NAICM project and is responsible for the tunnels and the seismic studies during the conceptual and final design phase of the project. Support and checking is provided in the detailed design phase. The tunnels in the project are constructed with the cut & cover method.