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Celleswald avalanche gallery

Facts and Figures
Company TEERAG-ASDAG GmbH
Principal Amt der Tiroler Landesregierung
Location Spiss - Austria
Type Structural engineering, Road construction, Specialist civil engineering
Runtime 10.2012 - 07.2014

Safe driving thanks to new avalanche gallery

Every day, up to 4,000 vehicles use the L 348, the Spisser Straße, which every now and then experiences avalanches and rockfall. To make driving there even safer, a new gallery – called the Celleswald Gallery – was installed at the end of the Gstalda and Anna Tunnels.

In addition to the new gallery and the associated roadwork, a so-called “pre-stressed interlaced anchor wall” and the “stabilised soil” system were used as a downhill support structure. Furthermore, an avalanche channelling wall, cyclopean masonry, a cantilever retaining wall at the Spiss portal, an electricity station and comprehensive rock stabilisation measures were implemented.

Executed as a vault support structure (tunnel profile), the Celleswald Gallery is some 207m long and was built in 21 stages of 10m each. The vault thickness is 60cm. Downhill, V-shaped pillars with a cross section of 60/80cm were founded on individual foundations whose foundation bases are located up to 5m below the road surface. Uphill, a 3.6m-wide strip foundation system was installed. Due to existing foundation ground exploration, the downhill foundations were executed in a stepped fashion at two different heights. In the Spiss portal area (blocks 11 to 21), deep foundations using micro bore piles had to be installed due to the low lying rock line. In this portal’s uphill section, a some 30m-long cantilever retaining wall was erected as a transition structure to the open-air area.

The biggest challenges those involved in the project had to face were keeping traffic moving in the construction site area, unsteady weather conditions in summer and winter as well as local ancillary conditions (spatial restrictions) and the construction site’s topographically difficult location in Alpine terrain. With this project, TEERAG-ASDAG was once again able to prove its experience and competence in the field of infrastructure and road construction.

Project data

  • Length of project: 300m
  • Road surface: 2,300m²
  • Excavation/earth moved: 13,000m³
  • Frost layer: 2,200m³
  • Mix: 700t
  • Tunnel/gallery structures: 206m
  • Concrete volume: 4,000m³
  • Reinforcing steel: 420t
  • Shotcrete area: 2,000m²
  • IBO anchors: 900 pcs.
  • Micropiles: 700m