What is the method of tunnel boring machine?

Release Time :

2025-01-22

Four TBMs were used to build the 9km long twin tunnels for the Metro Tunnel. Each TBM has a diameter of 7.28m, weighs over 1100 tonnes and is 120m long.


The heaviest component is the cutterhead, which weighs 100 tonnes and acts as a drill bit to carve tunnels through rock six times harder than concrete. The cutterhead surface diameter is 7.28m.


Up to 10 people work on each TBM at a time, including a TBM operator. The TBMs are manned and monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and are fully equipped with facilities for our workers, including offices, kitchens and toilets.


They are equipped with state-of-the-art navigation systems to ensure they dig exactly along the tunnel route.


The Metro Tunnel project uses hybrid shield tunnel boring machines (commonly known as slurry tunnel boring machines), which are specially designed for local ground conditions. Once the TBM's cutting wheel has bored through the ground, the excavated material is mixed with mud and transported back to the surface to a mud treatment plant. The excavated material is then separated from the mud and transported to a disposal site.


TBMs are required to excavate soft soils, such as the Coode Island silt, and hard basalt beneath the Yarra River and on parts of the Western Route. Many sections of the tunnel route have "mixed face" geology, with both hard and soft.


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