Norway’s $47BN Coastal Highway

Norway's western coast is home to some of the most spectacular landscapes on earth, carved by glaciers over the centuries, some of which extend 200 kilometers inland and are more than a kilometer deep. Current complicated travel routes through and around this terrain take you on Norway's 1,100-kilometer, 683-mile E39

highway

, a

highway

with a total travel time of 21 hours. Now the Norwegian government is working to improve access to services and residential and labor markets in the country's western regions by embarking on the largest infrastructure projects in the nation's history. The E39 motorway runs between Christensen, in the far south of the country, and Trondheim, in the north.

The route traverses the fjord network and has no less than seven ferry crossings. The new

coastal

motorway project aims to completely eliminate the need for ferry services by constructing a series of bridges and tunnels across and under the landscape, with many of the fields along the route being too wide or too deep for conventional infrastructure to cross. Norway's public road administration is investigating new innovative solutions. Rugfast is the first in a series of crossings that will link the E39 connecting Stavania and Halkerson through a 27 kilometer, 16 mile underwater tunnel. This structure will reach depths of up to 390 meters below sea level, making it the deepest and longest underwater road tunnel in the world.

In fact, the projects will consist of two tunnels connected every 250 meters with emergency exits. Each tunnel will have a siding at 500 meter intervals along with telephone and surveillance cameras along the route. The tunnel will also have an intersection halfway with the island municipality. Kavitsoy will create an underwater tunnel junction and connect the island to the Norwegian mainland. Work began in 2018. This element of the project will be completed in 2026 at a cost of US$2 billion, while Rockfast works are already underway. Some other fields present the project team with extreme engineering challenges. The Burner Fjord, located south of Bergen, is five kilometers wide and reaches a depth of 600 meters to cross this challenging stretch of water.

A proposal has been put forward for a floating bridge anchored to the At both ends of the coast, two possible solutions have been proposed for the Sula Fjord crossing: the first is a three-tower suspension bridge with two of the bridge towers anchored in land and the third central tower anchored to the seabed about 400 meters below the waterline. The alternative proposal for a submerged floating tunnel would include two side-by-side interconnected tubes tethered to the seabed by high-strength cables that would cross the Rumdelfjord. It would require a 16 kilometer underwater tunnel much like the Roguefast project from Olsond to Midcent, followed by a two kilometer suspension.

Bridge connecting to Moulder, by far the most complex and ambitious of all

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highway crossings is that of Songnifield, also known as the king of the fjords, the largest and deepest fjord in Norway is over 3.7 kilometers wide and an incredible depth of 1.3 kilometers at its lowest point. These extreme distances pose their own challenges. Engineers must also take into account the large number of ships that enter the fjord on a regular basis. Any crossing must allow a clear shipping route of at least 400 meters wide with a clearance of 70 meters above the water surface and at least 20 meters clearance at depth.

To achieve this, the project team is considering numerous different types of crossing for this fjord. The first is a traditional suspension bridge with a crossing of 3700 meters. A structure of this type would be almost twice as long as the current longest one in the world. bridge and would require support towers at least 450 meters high which would significantly dwarf the 343 meter height that would allow the viaduct in France to become the tallest bridge structure in the world. A floating bridge is also being considered, however this structure would need to be raised to allow ships to pass and achieving such a feature in a bridge that is only anchored to each shore poses considerable engineering challenges that have yet to be overcome in a similar proposal.

To the one found in the Sula Fjord, a submerged floating tunnel is also being considered. This proposal would differ slightly from its counterpart due to the extreme depth of the song field, instead of being tied to the sea floor, the tunnels would be suspended from floating pontoons that would allow ships to pass over them. A hybrid proposal is also being considered that combines a floating pontoon bridge with a submerged floating tunnel portion that allows ships to pass through, while fixed bridges transferring to fixed tunnels is not an uncommon solution in waterways with high maritime traffic, such as the link between Denmark and Sweden and the extensive crossing from Hong Kong to Macau, combining the two floating structures in this way would create the world's first example of such a solution, a proposal for a bridge cable-stayed in several sections.

This structure would have four floating towers tied to the seabed, as if they were oil platforms, with environmental and safety considerations being of utmost importance. Norway's vast coastal highway project is set to become a new benchmark in engineering capabilities and a model for future infrastructure projects around the world. If you enjoyed this video and want more from the ultimate construction video channel, please subscribe to b1m.