SAN BENEDETTO TUNNEL

On October 30, 2016, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake hit Central Italy, becoming the most intense seismic event since the 1980 Irpinia earthquake. Among the large number of structures affected by the event, State Highway SS685 connecting Spoleto, Norcia and Arquata del Tronto, experienced severe damages both to road surface and to additional structures. In particular, the earthquake heavily damaged the 4.4 km long San Benedetto road tunnel, which was realized to improve traffic on SS685.

Renovation works included the strengthening of the structure and the installation of an innovative monitoring tool called Cir Array, in order to measure the section convergence. Following renovation works completion, San Benedetto tunnel is nowadays functional and open to traffic with a Real-Time control of deformative phenomena.

The site is instrumented with a single Cir Array for the measure of convergence and deformations of the rock mass. The chain is about 37 m long and equipped with 37 Tunnel Link sensors (spaced 1 m).