ABSTRACT
The Brenner Base Tunnel is mainly composed by two single track Railway Tunnels and a Service Tunnel; Lots Mules 1 and 2–3 involve a 22 km long stretch on the Italian side. They cross the South part of the mountainous dorsal between Austria and Italy, under overburdens up to 1850 m, consisting of rocks both of Southalpine and Australpine domains, separated by the major Periadriatic Fault. More than 30 km of tunnels must be carried out with Mining Methods, with average dimension ranging from 7 to 20 m and with a 200 years required service life. The paper describes the procedures implemented in the design: geological assessment; geomechanical characterization and selection of rock mass design parameters; analytic and numerical methods to forecast rock mass behaviour (varying from rock burst to squeezing); definition and sizing of rock enhancements, first phase and final linings, under a wide range of load conditions.
