This month on the NorthConnex project in Sydney, Australia, they will reach a major milestone when the first of the roadheaders start operating at the Southern Compound. This roadheader will excavate the mainline tunnel at a speed of approximately 5 m/day in a northbound direction towards the Wilson Road Compound. In total, 19 roadheaders will be used to excavate the 9 km of twin tunnels and cross passages. A second roadheader will be launched at the Southern Compound at the end of May 2016. This will be followed, every three to four weeks by the launch of the remainder of the machines, until December 2016. There are four main compounds the Southern Interchange, Wilson Road, Trelawney Street and the Northern Interchange. The roadheaders will tunnel approximately 20 m/week and will continue until this major phase of the project reaches the anticipated completion date in mid 2018.

Lend Lease - Bouygues JV has awarded Sandvik Mining and Construction Australia the contract to provide 13 out of the 19 roadheaders required for the NorthConnex highway tunnel project: six MT720 units, one MT620 and six MT520 units.

Controlled blasting update

Controlled blasting excavation of the shafts is progressing at the main compound sites:  Wilson Road at a depth of 15m, Trelawney Street at 7m and the Northern Interchange at 20m. The shafts will enable access to the underground tunnel excavation locations from the surface.

Trial controlled blasts first took place in December 2015 at the Wilson Road and Northern Interchange compounds. Information from those blasts was used to complete secondary trial blasts in April/May 2016 at the Northern Interchange, Trelawney Street and Wilson Road compounds. The first controlled blast will take place at the Northern Compound by mid May 2016.

Click here for tunnelbuilder archive. Visit http://www.northconnex.com.au/ and http://shaftbuilding.northconnex.com.au/. 19/16.