The Martina tunnel boring machine is a hard rock tunnel boring machine built by Herrenknecht AG. It is the largest hard rock tunnel boring machine in the world and has been used for drilling the Sparvo Tunnel, a part of the larger Variante di Valico project in Italy. [1]
The Martina has a shield diameter of 15.55 metres, an excavation diameter of 15.62 metres, a length of 130 metres, a total weight of 4500 tonnes and an annual operating consumption of 62 million kWh. The machine started work on the Sparvo tunnel in 2011, with drilling of the 2430-metre north tube completed in 2012. The drilling of the 2600-metre south tube was finished in 2013, bringing the 5-kilometre tunneling project to an end. [2] [3] [4]
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube construction techniques rather than traditional tunnel boring methods.
A tunnel boring machine (TBM), also known as a "mole", is a machine used to excavate tunnels. Tunnels are excavated through hard rock, wet or dry soil, or sand, each of which requires specialized technology.
The Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel, E38, is a storm drainage and road structure in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and a major national project in the country. The 9.7 km (6.0 mi) tunnel is the longest stormwater drainage tunnel in Southeast Asia and second longest in Asia.
The Heathrow Airside Road Tunnel (ART) is a tunnel at Heathrow Airport. It connects the airside roads around Terminals 1, 2 and 3 to those around Terminal 5. The tunnel was opened to traffic in March 2005 and is used only by vehicles with security clearance to drive airside.
The Niagara Tunnel Project was part of a series of major additions to the Sir Adam Beck hydroelectric generation complex in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural element of a deep foundation, driven or drilled deep into the ground at the building site.
Herrenknecht AG is a German company that manufactures tunnel boring machines, headquartered in Allmannsweier, Schwanau, Baden-Württemberg. It is the worldwide market leader for heavy tunnel boring machines. Roughly two-thirds of its 5,000 employees work at the company's headquarters in the installation of hydraulic and electronic components and final inspection. Approximately 300 work at three locations across China. The company has 82 subsidiaries around the world and has worked on 2,600 projects.
The Shanghai Yangtze River Tunnel and Bridge is a bridge–tunnel complex across the south fork of the Yangtze River near the river mouth in Shanghai. The tunnel connects the Pudong District of Shanghai on the south bank of the river with Changxing Island, while the bridge connects Changxing Island with Chongming Island. In combination with the Chongqi Bridge, which connects Chongming Island to the north bank of the Yangtze, the bridge–tunnel complex forms the final crossing of the Yangtze before it empties into the East China Sea.
The Liffey Service Tunnel is a service tunnel for various pipelines in Dublin, Ireland, owned by Dublin City Council.
Boring is drilling a hole, tunnel, or well in the Earth. It is used for various applications in geology, agriculture, hydrology, civil engineering, and mineral exploration. Today, most Earth drilling serves one of the following purposes:
The City Tunnel is a twin-bore railway tunnel for the city-centre S-Bahn in Leipzig. It links Leipzig Hauptbahnhof with the central Markt station, Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz station and Bayerischer Bahnhof.
The Bosphorus Water Tunnel or Bosporus aqueduct is an undersea aqueduct in Istanbul, Turkey, crossing the Bosphorus strait. It was constructed in 2012 to transfer water from the Melen Creek in Düzce Province to the European side of Istanbul.
The Tuen Mun - Chek Lap Kok TBM is the world's largest tunnel boring machine launched in June 2015 by Herrenknecht in Germany. The TBM is used to drill a 5 km tunnel connecting Tuen Mun to the Hong Kong International Airport, part of the Tuen Mun–Chek Lap Kok Link project. The machine has a diameter of 17.6 metres (57.7 ft), 0.1 metres (0.3 ft) more than Bertha, the previous largest tunnel boring machine.
The Katzenberg Tunnel is a railway tunnel on the Karlsruhe–Basel high-speed railway that opened in December 2012. The tunnel was built to increase the capacity and speed of the Mannheim–Karlsruhe–Basel railway and was built to remove the freight traffic from the towns on the old line. The two parallel, single-track tunnels, which can be passed at up to 250 km/h, extend from Bad Bellingen to Efringen-Kirchen With a length of 9,385 m, it is the third longest tunnel after the Landrücken Tunnel and the Münden Tunnel and the longest twin-bore tunnel in Germany.
The Semmering Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel under construction between Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag in Austria underneath the Semmering Pass. The existing route is 41 km in length and the Semmering Base Tunnel will be 27.3 km in length. The new route will offer time savings of up to 30 minutes, partly on account of the shorter route and partly on account of the higher speed limit.
Martin Herrenknecht is a German engineer and businessman. He founded an engineering company in 1975, which became Herrenknecht AG in 1977. Today his company makes large, heavy tunnel boring machines. They have 4955 employees as of 2015.
The Waterview Tunnel is a twin road tunnel in central Auckland, New Zealand. At 2,400 metres (7,900 ft) long, it is New Zealand's longest road tunnel. The tunnel, with three lanes of road vehicle traffic in each direction, connects State Highway 20 in the south at Mount Roskill to State Highway 16 in the west at Point Chevalier as part of the Waterview Connection. Its opening completed the Western Ring Route motorway system.
Tunnels are dug in types of materials varying from soft clay to hard rock. The method of tunnel construction depends on such factors as the ground conditions, the ground water conditions, the length and diameter of the tunnel drive, the depth of the tunnel, the logistics of supporting the tunnel excavation, the final use and shape of the tunnel and appropriate risk management. Tunnel construction is a subset of underground construction.
Euston tunnel is a tunnel currently planned in London that will carry the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway between Euston railway station and Old Oak Common railway station.
Big Stan is a vehicle-mounted drill rig built in 1986 by Anderson Drilling. The rig has been used on a number of construction projects in which conventional, smaller drilling rigs were unable to be used, particularly when projects call for drilling into hard soil. Notably, Big Stan was used in the construction of the First National Bank Tower in Omaha, the Benicia-Martinez bridge near San Francisco, and on expansions to the I-15/215 Beltway in Las Vegas. The drill rig was featured on Discovery Channel’s show “Monster Machines” in 2007.