Herrenknecht Large Diameter TBMs Set RecordsThe islands of Chongming, Changxing and Hengsha are separated from mainland Shanghai by the Yangtze river. They are situated northeast of Shanghai and the three of them combined comprise Chongming county. Chongming Island is the second largest in China, after Hainan. People on the islands depend on ferries to travel to and from Shanghai. But in bad weather, the services are suspended for safety reasons. The poor transport links have led to the three islands lagging behind the mainland in terms of economic development.The main construction work on a tunnel and bridge project to connect mainland Shanghai with Changxing and Chongming islands in the Yangtze estuary was launched in 2004. It is designed to reduce the journey time between the islands and the mainland from one hour to 20 minutes. The bridge and tunnel will help the economic growth of Chongming. The original plan is to finish all construction work by July 2010.The 16.65 km bridge will connect Changxing and Chongming islands. On completion, the bridge will be the third-widest suspension bridge in the country and fifth-widest in the world. The tunnel will connect Wuhaogou in the Pudong new area with Chenjiazhen village on Chanxing Island, which lies between the mainland and Chongming Island. It is the world's longest tunnel / bridge combination, 25.5 km long in total. The road that will connect both islands will carry six lanes (three each way) allowing speeds of more than 80 km/h in the tunnel and more than 100 km/h on the bridge.Shanghai's infrastructure is on the fast track after the city announced that it had completed at the end of May the structural construction of the eastern tube of the 7,472 m-long and 15.43 m-diameter Yangtze river tunnel, which is as tall as a five-storey building and has two levels. On 21st May, the TBM was inside the sealing block of the arrival shaft and hit the wall of the shaft. This shaft wall contained reinforcement steel, so the wall was demolished from within the arrival shaft. Then the TBM could progress further and install another five rings (between 22nd and 24th May) until the tailskin was completely out of the tunnel and within the arrival shaft.The twin tunnel will be used both for vehicular traffic and for a section of Line 9 of the metro. The deepest point lies at 55 metres under the sedimentary bed of the Yangtze delta.Herrenknecht's machine S-317 installed a total of 3,734 permanent rings, each 2 m long, in a 9+1 keystone design. Machine S-318 working on the parallel tunnel has built 3,238 rings (status at 10th June, 2008 before dayshift start) and has still to install a remaining amount of 498 rings. Breakthrough is expected in week 33 at the latest. Visit www.herrenknecht.comThe best day was achieved on 2nd November, 2007 with 13 rings installed (26 metres) and the best week was week 44/2007 with 72 rings (144 metres). The machine progressed at an average advance rate of 12 metres (six rings) per day (88 metres and 44 rings per week).The TBM had no breakdown lasting longer than six hours during the whole project and there was no requirement of changing the tailskin brushes or cutting tools. Hydraulic oil, grease and tailskin grease were supplied by Condat. All this is a sign of a high quality TBM and evidence of a good jobsite organisation in regard of operation procedures and maintenance. The segment lining all along the tunnel is perfect, with no steps at all. The bentonitic slurry and worksite water treatment plant is supplied by MS of France. Click here for more. View pictures here. Visit www.condat.fr and www.m-s.fr Pushing the limits of large diameter TBMsRussian billionaire Roman Abramovich, governor of the sparsely populated Chukotka region in Russia's Far East and boss of Chelsea football club, announced on 27th March that his company ZOA Infrastruktura had concluded a deal to acquire a 19 m-diameter tunnel boring machine, the first machine capable of boring a four-lane tunnel. The dimension eclipses by more than three and a half metres the world's existing biggest machine, the Pudong-Changxing TBM used in Shanghai. The tunnel boring machine will cost an estimated EUR100 million and take two years to design and manufacture. The TBM will be able to bore and construct a tunnel in mixed soft ground, including high water pressure. What project the machine is intended for is still undisclosed, perhaps road infrastructure in Sotchi as part of the 2014 winter Olympics or in Saint Petersburg or the 4th motorway ring in Moscow which requires huge combined metro/road tunnels with four lanes. Moscow media speculation that the TBM would be used to drill the Bering Strait tunnel between Siberia and Alaska has been strongly denied by a spokesman for Abramovich. Large TBMs from Herrenknecht (more than 10 metres) have been used for four traffic tunnelling projects in Russia. These projects are the 2 x 2,056 m 14.2 m-diameter Lefortovo tunnel, the Silver Forest tunnel, a 2.4 km single bore on the Zaryzino south ring road in Moscow and an escalator shaft for the Saint-Petersbourg metro (120 m). After refurbishment, the Lefortovo TBM was used for the 2 x 1,505 m Silver Forest tunnel (same diameter) and now the TBM is being refurbished again and prepared for its third job below Moscow, the 2.4 km Zaryzino tunnel. At the moment, other machines in the 6.24-6.28 diameter range worked or are working in Russia, mainly in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.Since 1999, Herrenknecht has sold 50 utility tunnelling machines (diameter up to 4.2 m) to Russia. Currently, 20 utility tunnelling machines are used in Russia (sewage, water supply, oil and gas, electricity). Sixth world record in La CabreraThe Herrenknecht tunnel boring machine which excavates the second La Cabrera tunnel on the Siete Aguas-Buñol section of the Madrid-Valencia high speed line established a new record on 12th June, 2008 with an impressive advance of 89.6 metres and the placement of 56 rings of segmental lining in just one day. It is the sixth world record beaten by the TBM. Each shift employs 24 people. The previous record was achieved on 1st December, 2007 (83.2 metres and 52 rings). Other maximum advances achieved by crews include an advance of 44.8 metres in twelve hours, another advance of 431.75 metres in a week and 1,599 metres in 30 days, all of them in November 2007 during tunnelling of the first tube. Click here and es/95.Construction of the second bore of the La Cabrera tunnel commenced on 6th May, 2008 while the first tube ended on 25th January. The machine was then disassembled and re-assembled to excavate the second tunnel. This lasted three months, from 26th January to 29th April.The 2 x 7,250 La Cabrera tunnel is the longest tunnel on the Madrid-Valencia high speed line and it is bored in carbonated rock under Sierra de Cabrera. Each tube has a 8.75 m inner diameter. 25/08.