SCIENCE AND TECNOLOGY

Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM)

What is?

Also called mole, is a machine used to excavated tunnels with a circular

cross section through a variety of soil and rock strata, in other words this
machine can destroy almost all kind of rocks.
This machine can measure up to 20 meters of diameter and more than 35
metres long, and with the bucket wheel excavator they are one of the bigger
excavator machines in the world.
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How does it work?

There are many kinds of TBM, but their design is similar on all. The
mechanical system is composed of the following parts:
a) Cutterhead. The machines front end is known as the cutterhead for
good reason it has dozens of teeth that chip away the ground as it
rotates. The machine will dig an average of 35 feet per day. At the
end of its journey, the cutterhead will have rotated the equivalent of
2.300 miles.
b) Concrete panels. Curved concrete panels are installed behind the
shield to form rings that serve as the tunnels exterior walls. Ring
by ring, the machine pushes forward while the tunnel takes shape in
its wake.
c) Trailing gear. More than 300 feet of support gear will trail behind the
machine. It includes everything the machine and its crew needs, form
supplies like grout and grease to amenities like restrooms and
kitchen. About 25 crew members will be working in the machine at
any given time.
d) Conveyer belt. A massive conveyer belt will move excavated soil from
the front of the machine out of the tunnel to barges waiting at nearby
Terminal 46 the belt will get longer as the machine progresses,
eventually reaching 9,000 feet in length.
Transfer and assembly can take about 2 years, and investment price can be
very enormous, so it isnt economic for digging small tunnels.
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Places where it has applied and the most important

applications.

The Big in Berthas name isnt there for the catchiness.

Its there because its apt. With a 57-foot diameter and a length of a football
field, Big Bertha is the worlds largest tunnel-boring machine. Shes quite
hefty too. Bertha is assembled from 41 parts, the largest of which weighs in
at 900 tons.

Bertha aboard the Jumbo

Fairweather. Credit: WSDOT Flickr
And she recently received a
celebritys welcome in Seattle
where Bertha will begin digging
the Washington State Route 99
tunnel beneath downtown Seattle
this summer.
The new tunnel will replace the SR
99 Alaskan Way Viaduct that was opened 60 years ago this week, according
to the Washington State Department of Transportation. Replacing the
viaduct will cost a total of $3.1 billion. Digging the tunnel alone will cost $2
billion.
The $80 million Bertha traveled 5,000 miles from Osaka, Japan where she
was built by Hitachi Zosen. The owner of the tunnel-boring machine is
Seattle Tunnel Partners, the contractor chose by WSDOT for the tunnel
project.
Bertha even has her own Twitter account and its quite entertaining.
Also in Peru it was applied to transfer water of the river Huancabamba in
Lambayeque through a tunnel of 20 km long and 4.8 m of diameter, to
irrigate the Olmos valley.