Hamburg/Germany 23 February 2012 – Personnel air locks are essential pieces of equipment for compressed air work, particularly in tunnelling projects. Currently for simple personnel airlocks there exist some basic national requirements in individual countries as well as a European standard. To reflect the rapid developments in the field Germanischer Lloyd (GL) has released new rules for the construction and certification of chamber systems for tunnelling.
Tunnel construction projects are being undertaken at ever greater subterranean depth and consequently compressed air work is being performed at ever higher pressures. As a result of this the technical requirements for this work becomes ever more complex, for example in the use of mixed breathing gases, increased decompression times, and shuttle chambers.
Due to the lack of internationally applicable standards laying out the requirements for these technically challenging fields, GL has developed rules, which are titled “VI – Additional Rules and Guidelines, Part 11 – Other Operations and Systems, Chapter 4 – Hyperbaric Chambers for Tunnelling”.
The GL Rules are available in English and consist of three chapters that deal with the certification process, manned and unmanned air locks, and pressure chambers for the treatment of decompression sickness. They will be of particular interest to manufacturers, operators, construction companies, regulatory bodies and insurers.
More info: Viewers can find more information on the GL website under: http://www.gl-group.com/infoServices/rules/pdfs/english/ergvors/teil-11/ kap-4/englisch/inhalt.pdf
