OREANDA-NEWS. March 14, 2013. ArcelorMittal's steel is being used in a major new underground pipes project that is helping to prevent flooding in Buenos Aires.

The Maldonado stream project involves expanding the piping system in order to avoid surface water diversion. 

With the city growing rapidly in the last decade, the Maldonado tunnels – which were built in the 1920s and 1930s to ‘tube’ the stream, to manage the risk of the stream overflowing after heavy rains - had become too small to cope. With a risk of occasional floods in the city there was a clear need to expand the network’s capacity.  

Thanks to a new system of tunnels that is connected to the existing network, flooding will no longer be a common sight on the streets of the city. The new system is 40m below ground, requiring high strength steel to reinforce the concrete used to build the tunnel and the giant access well that was built as part of the project.

Acindar Grupo ArcelorMittal provided 11,000 tonnes of cut- and-bend steel for the concrete coating of the tunnel, rebar for the well’s concrete walls (the well is 50m deep and 40m diameter) as well as steel sections. Pre-assembled structures were also an important part of the service provided by Acindar.

The major works started in September 2008 and were finished last August. The inauguration of the final construction will take place in the first quarter of this year.

Major excavation works were involved in this high profile project, using giant tunnel-boring machines (known as moles) that stretch to 100m in length and were lowered into the ground via the access well that is in the Costanera district of Buenos Aires, which runs alongside the River Plate.