Arba Minch University

Institute of Technology
Department Civil Engineering
Geotechnical Engineering
Course : Analysis of Slopes Earth
retaining Structure & Underground Structures
(CENG-7203)
TBM & TUNNELING BY TBM

Presented by:-Abimelech Bekele (SMSc 228/06)

Submitted to :- DR. R. K. VERMA

TBM( Tunnel Boring Machines)
&
TUNNELING BY TBM
 EXCAVATION SYSTEMS
Before the advent of explosives, tunnels were
excavated using thermal shock (first heating the
rock with fire and then cooling it with water), or by
elementary manually powered mechanical
means, with very great use of manpower.
Blasting technology has made considerable
progress since the second half of the Nineteenth
Century in terms of efficiency and the variety of
safety products and also as a result of the
developments in blast hole drilling.
Typical tunnel excavation processes are generally divided into
two categories.

Energy is transferred to the medium extremely rapidly with

those belonging to the first category (excavation by blasting ,
roadheaders, hammer, ripper, mechanical bucket, etc.), –
conventional
while it is transferred very much more slowly with those
belonging to the second category (mechanical excavation).
mechanised (full face TBMs)
conventional
 conventional

The “Vasto” tunnel (Ancona-Bari railway line), 1991, ground: clayey silts, overburden <
50 m). Top: reinforcement of the advance core with fibre glass reinforcement; bottom:
excavation for tunnel advance
mechanised (full face TBMs)
 Types and characteristics of the TBM
• slurry shields or hydroshields in which direct
confinement of the core-face is obtained by employing
bentonite in suspension pumped under pressure into the
excavation chamber;
• Earth Pressure Balanced (EPB) TBM’s in which it is the
muck itself, fluidified using special foam, which is
maintained under pressure in the excavation chamber
where control of the advance rate and of the spoil
removal flow rate is synchronised;
• mixshield or polyshield TBM’s are multi-purpose
machines capable of operating in the two modes above
mentioned and also dry, with no fluid pressure on the
core-face.
The TBM used for the excavation of the tunnel
and its lining is a Wirth TB 630 E/TS, double
shielded telescopic rock cutter with a diameter of
12.06 m capable of generating a maximum thrust
of 30,000 kN and an excavation torque of 5 kNm.
As has been said, the distinguishing feature of
the machine is that it was fitted with drilling
equipment inside the shield capable of drilling
holes in advance through special apertures in the
cutter head and on the steel shell for the purpose
of surveying or improving and reinforcing the
ground .
The current dimensions for road and rail tunnels
require excavation diameters of between 10 and
14 m & 120m its length modern technology
provides TBM’s of those dimensions. They are,
however, complex machines with a high cost that
require a long time to construct and assemble
and dismantle in situ. The supply and assembly
of machines of this type and size requires
average times of around 15 months, a period that
can only sometimes be arranged to partially or
totally coincide with the time taken for setting up
the construction site and preparing the portal.
the construction times and costs can only be
reduced for tunnels of a certain length.
Ginori service tunnel: view of the head of the TBM during
insertion in the tunnel

diameters of between 10 and 14 m

•The spoil removal system consisted of conveyor
belts. A special rack and pinion traction system
supplied the TBM with the material required for
excavation and tunnel lining activity.
• The lining itself consisted of rings of
prefabricated r.c. segments 140 cm in length and
25 cm thick, designed to withstand a hydraulic
pressure of up to 5 bar.
•The rings, composed of six segments plus a key,
had a special diagonally truncated cone shape,
which made it easy to follow the theoretical
alignment of the tunnel with excellent precision
by simple fitting the segments for each ring in
the sequence appropriate for each occasion.
Depot for the prefabricated concrete segments for the final lining on the construction
site of the Ginori service tunnel driven by TBM
When tunnels are very long, the
time and investment required for
conventional excavation becomes
very great. One need only consider
the removal of spoil (a 3 m tunnel
advance results in approximately
650 m3 of ground to be removed).
Tunnel advance can in fact proceed
from two to three times faster with
a TBM than it can with conventional
methods.
Ginori service tunnel: The mechanism for lifting
prefabricated concrete segments for the final lining
 Cellular arch technology
The cellular arch is an innovative
construction technology designed for the
construction of large span tunnels in urban
environments when the geotechnical and
stress-strain situations, the shallow over
burden sand the requirement for
construction work to have negligible effects
on surface constructions and activities are
either not compatible with conventional
tunneling methods, or make them less
reliable and competitive.
It is a composite structure with a trellis-like
framework and a semicircular cross section. The
longitudinal members (cells) consist of pipes
(minitunnels) filled wit r . c. joined together by
a series of large transverse ribs (arches) .
Studies performed to find the limits to its
application suggest that it can be employed
successfully to build shallow overburden, bored
tunnel cavities with a span of more than 60 m
even in loose soils under the water table,
without causing any appreciable surface
settlement.
THANK YOU
REFERENCE
• DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF TUNNELS

Pietro Lunardi

•Introduction to Tunnel Construction

David Chapman, Nicole Metje ,and Alfred Stärk

• Internet ( YOU TUBE )