{"id":64492,"date":"2025-09-21T15:47:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T10:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=64492"},"modified":"2025-09-22T18:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T13:10:06","slug":"new-austrian-tunnelling-method-natm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/new-austrian-tunnelling-method-natm\/","title":{"rendered":"New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>New Austrian Tunnelling Method Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project recently achieved a 4.88 km tunnel breakthrough under Thane Creek using NATM (New Austrian tunnelling method), marking major progress in excavation.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About New Austrian Tunnelling Method\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was <\/span><b>developed <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">between <\/span><b>1957 and 1965 in Austria.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The main idea is to <\/span><b>use the geological stress of the surrounding rock mass to stabilize the tunnel itself.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is both a construction method and a design philosophy.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The philosophy looks to <\/span><b>use the strength of the surrounding soil<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to the greatest extent possible <\/span><b>to strengthen the tunnel structure.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In other words,<\/span><b> ground conditions drive the tunneling operation.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The NATM philosophy also <\/span><b>promotes constant monitoring.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The NATM construction method<\/span><b> is about flexibility<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014<\/span><b>drilling and designing depending on the results of the ongoing monitoring.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> operation occurs sequentially <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to<\/span><b> take most advantage of the ground conditions.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Additionally, NATM <\/span><b>installs ground support on the go and on an as-needed basis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, adding reinforcement to the shotcrete where necessary.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NATM is <\/span><b>best suited for short-range (&gt; 2 km) tunnels in regions with variable soil conditions.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Thane Creek<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>one of the largest creeks in Asia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and is <\/span><b>located partly on the coast of the Mumbai metropolis.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>inlet <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">along the shoreline <\/span><b>of the Arabian Sea<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that <\/span><b>isolates the city of Mumbai from the Indian mainland.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The<\/span><b> east bank l<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ies in the <\/span><b>Thane and Navi Mumbai districts,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> while the <\/span><b>west bank<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is in the <\/span><b>Greater Mumbai district.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The creek<\/span><b> runs about 26 km north from Mumbai harbour<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> before it <\/span><b>joins the Ulhas river through a small channel.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are <\/span><b>several sources of fresh water <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">for the creek, of which <\/span><b>Ulhas river is the largest, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">followed by numerous drainage channels from various suburban areas of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, and Thane, making the water brackish.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The site is a<\/span><b> mixture of saltpans as well as stretches of mangroves.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thane Creek is a very<\/span><b> important wintering ground for waterbirds<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It supports over 1,00,000 birds during winter, including the iconic flamingos.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A major part of the creek has been declared a bird sanctuary called <\/span><b>Thane Creek Flamingo Bird Sanctuary (TCFS).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\">It was designated as a <b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Ramsar site,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a wetland of international significance, in 2022.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesnownews.com\/mumbai\/mumbai-ahmedabad-bullet-train-milestone-tunnel-breakthrough-under-thane-creek-key-project-highlights-article-152860324\/amp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">TIMES<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New Austrian Tunnelling Method&#8217;s main idea is to use the geological stress of the surrounding rock mass to stabilize the tunnel itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":64706,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2818,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-64492","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-new-austrian-tunnelling-method-natm","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}