AASHTO has released for sale a publication detailing load and resistance factor design guide specifications for highway tunnels.

The association’s Bookstore is offering this 279-page first edition of “LRFD Tunnel Design and Construction Guide Specifications” as a single-user electronic file, at both member and nonmember prices.

Developed for industry use by the Highway Subcommittee on Bridges and Structures, its guide specifications are intended for the design, evaluation and rehabilitation of highway tunnels and for the design of tunnels that are built using cut-and-cover, bored, mined and immersed tunnel construction methods.

It does not include provisions water conveyance, utility, transit or rail tunnels, or for shafts. In addition, its order-page description said that structures internal to tunnels – those that support roadways over ventilation plenums, roadways or other openings in the tunnel – are to be designed in accordance with the separate “AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications,” as should retaining walls for retained cut approaches to tunnels.