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PREFACE:

Every author will claim that his or her book will cast light on aspects of the chosen topic not previously illuminated by his (or her—to be understood throughout) precursors. Where then are the dark unexplored recesses of the underground world that justify the promised light at the end of the tunnel of this present account? The immediate spur to writing this book is that the author has lived and worked through a period of revolutionary change in tunnelling, with several components: 

• change from traditional craft to technological art;

 • spectacular advances in site investigation techniques and in geotechnical analysis;

 • great strides in technological development in all aspects of tunnel construction;

 • emphasis on the teachable elements of science applied to tunnelling; 

• recognition of the interplay of opposites: opportunity and risk, in the development of tunnelling strategies;

 • institutional recognition of tunnelling as a specific branch of engineering. But costly mistakes—possibly costing more than the original estimate of the project—are now more common occurrences, usually of a foreseeable and preventable nature.

 Overall, therefore, the industry is nowhere near optimum potential, to the frustration of those who work in it, the wasting of personal effort, the thwarting of the objectives of the promoters of projects who, in the most egregious failures, have themselves through lack of understanding established conditions unconducive to success. Where lawyers earn far more from the failure of projects than do the most skilled engineers from success, clearly there are fundamental systemic faults. From the surface, no single explanation for this contradictory situation is apparent but deeper digging indicates a common set of system failures. A primary purpose of this book is therefore to see tunnelling as a system and to develop principles for success based on effective understanding and operation of the system of interplay of specific tunnelling skills.

 The views expressed in this book are the author’s own but he acknowledges his debt to his many immediate colleagues in Halcrow and to so many tunnellers and others around the world for several of the thoughts which have prompted the book. The author accepts full responsibility for any misunderstanding. The account may be criticised as unduly orientated towards the British and European examples. This is justified by selecting examples for which the circumstances are generally familiar; lessons learned may well have more universal application. The Channel Tunnel, for example, provides many examples of meritorious engineering with less meritorious management. An exemplary account of its engineering geology (Harris et al. 1996) attracts numerous references on account of its depth and breadth.

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