Herrenknecht's Triple TBM Launch on Metro Lines in Athens, Sao Paulo and BudapestThree Herrenknecht TBMs have been put at work around the world in recent weeks to build three new metro lines in the notoriously congested cities of Athens and Sao Paulo and in Budapest, where the first Continental Europe's line and world's third oldest line was inaugurated in 1896. But little has been done since then to develop the Hungarian system. View pictures here. Visit www.herrenknecht.com GreeceWork on extending the Athens metro to the southeastern suburbs began on 2nd March, 2007 as Giorgos Souflias, the Minister for Environment, Land Planning and Public Works, wished good luck on the project to tunnelling crews and project planners during the launch ceremony of a Herrenknecht tunnel boring machine. Souflias visited the site in Helleniko to view the first day of work on the project. The TBM, or metropontikas (metro mouse) as it is known in Greek, has been named after 16-year-old forward soccer player, Sotiris Ninis, who has impressed with his performances since making his debut for Panathinaikos in January. An avid fan of Athens' Panathinaikos, Ninis' team, Souflias said he expected "TBM Ninis" to prove as "masterful, quick and effective" as its teen prodigy namesake in penetrating rock-hard defences.The 94 m-long and 1,100-tonne EPB machine, equipped with a 9.46 m-diameter cutterhead, began test excavations in the seafront area of Helleniko with the aim of digging a 5.5 km-long 9.18 m OD, 8.48 m ID single bored tunnel in Athenian schists to Agios Dimitrios, currently the last stop on Line 2. Marti Technik's conveyor belt for Sao Paulo's Yellow Line 4 The laser guidance system is a VMT supply. The segments are cast locally by Armos. A ring is formed by seven universal segments and the key stone, sealed with Phoenix gaskets. The methodology for evacuation of the soils is conveyor behind the face and a muck train. Visit www.vmt-gmbh.de and www.phoenix-ag.comThe TBM will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week at a depth of 21 metres. Some 120 workers will oversee the operation as it digs through 10 metres of earth each day. The project's progress is subject to any major archaeological finds. Digs are under way at the sites where Argyroupoli and Alimos stations will be located to prevent any delays once the machine has reached there.Construction of the extension to Helliniko of Line 2 has been awarded by Attiko Metro to Vinci Construction Grands Projets, Aktor and Siemens. The project is due to be completed by the end of 2009, when four new 110 m-long stations will open (Helleniko, Argyroupoli, Alimos and Ilioupoli, in the order from south to the existing north terminal station in Agios Dimitrios). The line will also be ventilated by shafts. Click gr/14. Read E-News Weekly 1/2006, 44/2004 & 12/2004. Visit www.vinci.com, www.aktor.gr and www.ametro.grBrazilA BRL64 million Herrenknecht EPB shield, which parts commenced to arrive in August 2006 in Porto de Santos, has been officially launched on 3rd March, 2007 on Sao Paulo's Yellow Line 4 by Consortium Via Amarela (CVA) and SELI of Italy. CVA is a joint venture of Odebrecht, Constructora OAS, Queiroz Galvão, Camargo Corrêa, Andrade Gutierrez, and Alstom. The TBM-built single bored tunnel totals 6,464 metres, plus 1,300 metres of crossings, and will connect Faria Lima station, west of the city, to Luz station in the centre. Herrenknecht's machine S-336 weighs 1,800 tonnes, is 75 m long and features a 9,460 mm-diameter cutterhead powered by 3,200 kW, a total thrust range of 84,446 / 96,510 kN and a cutterhead torque ranging from 22,817 to 27,775 kNm. The excavated diameter is 9,500 mm. The TBM is expected to break through in 2008 after 15 months of work and an average daily advance estimated at 14 metres. Visit www.viamarela.com.br, www.selitunnel.com and www.selitecnologie.comThe TBM will advance through the recent alluvial deposit and San Paulo formation under water table. Both formations are mainly characterized by the presence of clayey sand and sandy clay materials, occasionally silty, having very low mechanical parameters. In some areas, saturated, very compacted, occasionally cemented coarse sand characterized by an abundance of quartz particles will be encountered. Each lining ring is made of seven 3,678 mm-long x 1,500 mm-wide x 350 mm-thick precast concrete segments and the keystone. SAME has supplied the segment plant and moulds. Click here. The segments are produced by CVA. The rings have an outer diameter of 9,130 mm and an inner diameter of 8,430 mm. The segment plant has capacity to produce ten rings per day.Along its way, the machine will cross six stations (Fradique Coutinho, Oscar Freire, Paulista, Mackenzie/Higienópolis, República and Luz). Each station is approx. 130 m long and has been built using drilling and blasting in a top heading / bench sequence. A major collapse occurred in January at the Pinheiros station site, killing seven people and leading authorities to order a work stop on 11 of the 23 construction sites. Read E-News Weekly 6/2007. Behind the TBM, a Marti Technik conveyor belt is installed in the tunnel as the TBM progresses. The entire 7,764 m-long conveyor belt equipment and a 96 m-long conveyor belt at the outside dump have been designed, assembled and commissioned to the site by Marti Technik engineers. The assignment also includes the electric power and the visual monitoring of the system. The 800 mm-wide belts will evacuate 1.4 million of soil at a speed of 800 t/hour, both for the tunnel conveyor and the outside belt at the dump site. The system inside the tunnel is powered by 200 kW while the smaller installation outside is powered by 90 kW. The 890 kW electro-technical and control system allows a fully automatic management of the muck volume from the TBM to the outside intermediate dump site. Operators can view the full conveyor line on screens and stop it safely if needed. Visit www.martitechnik.chThe Sao Paulo metro, operated by Metropolitano de Sao Paulo, consists of four colour-coded lines (Blue Line 1, Green Line 2, Red Line 3 and Lilac Line 5), serving a total of 56 stations. The system does not cover all of the urban area and another company, Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM), runs six lines (A, B, C, D, E and F) converted into metro, about 250 km long, serving 92 stations. Metro and CPTM have integration between their stations. The Yellow Line 4 will provide further integration between the two systems. Click br/11. Visit www.metro.sp.gov.br/expansao/teexpansao.shtmlHungaryAnother Herrenknecht TBM, this time for Budapest's fourth metro line, commenced its job on 3rd April, 2007 accompanied by a brass band and blessed by a Catholic priest. Work began at Kelenföld station and is now scheduled to reach Keleti station in 2010. This is the first of a pair of 6,050 mm nominal diameter EPB shields needed for the project. This is the north tunnel TBM to be launched first. The second, south TBM is due to be launched on 27th April, 2007. The north TBM will drive a 5,500 m tunnel while the south TBM will excavate 5,640 metres of tunnel. The tunnel's inner diameter will be 5.2 metres when its outer diameter will be 5.8 metres.Stage 1 of Line 4 includes ten stations which are typically approximately 110 m-long x 25 m-wide diaphragm wall boxes, with 80 m platform length. Depth of the tunnel varies from 20 to 30 metres. At three station locations, surface access restrictions limit the size of the station box, which is why at these locations, part of the platforms is constructed by mined tunnel.A 70 m section adjacent to Bocskai station will be mined using the shotcrete lined method. The north tunnel includes a 90 m cross-over and 100 metres of NATM tunnel. The south tunnel includes a 100 m cross-over. Other underground structures are a main ventilation shaft, 8 m in diameter, the launch box, a connection depot, ten stations and 12 emergency cross passages linking the two running tunnels.Geology is clay and marl on the Buda side, silty fined sand under the Danube, and sands and clay on the Pest side. In the west, Buda side of the project, the tunnels run predominantly within the Kiscelli clay which is a good tunnelling medium, therefore operation of the TBMs is planned to be mainly in open mode. For the tunnel beneath the Danube and in the east, Pest side of the project, the ground is more mixed with bands of granular material. Therefore through these areas, the TBMs are planned to be operated in closed mode.The 30 cm-thick precast concrete segments are manufactured by ZIPP of Slovakia, with CBE equipment. Each universal taper ring has five segments and a key, protected with Phoenix sealing gaskets. The guidance systems are supplied by VMT and Vinci's CAP system for guidance of TBM. Visit www.cbe-tunnels.comSchoema CFL-200 35 t locomotives with a muck train composed of Muhlhauser muck cars, segment wagons and grout cars will remove the spoil. Visit www.schoema-locos.de and www.tunnelling-equipment.comThe TBM has been launched six months behind schedule due to financing difficulties of Line 4, which will stretch 6,425 metres (north tunnel) and 6,450 metres (south tunnel). Whether the government has sufficient funds for the project, or for further extensions to Bosnyák tér, is uncertain. The long-awaited metro line is already over budget, behind schedule and European Union funding for the project is now in doubt. The first section of the line between Etele tér and Baross tér has already exceeded its original HUF273 billion (EUR1.09 billion) budget by HUF43.1 billion (EUR172.2 million). The first stage is already one year behind schedule and will not open before the end of 2010. The second stage, which would extend the line from Keleti station to Bosnyák tér, will be delayed until the end of 2012. The question of who will finance the project if the EU is not willing to cover as much of the cost as expected remains unclear. The government had been hoping that the EU would cover 70-80% of the cost. The cost of the total project, however, is now expected to amount to as much as HUF485 billion (EUR1.94 billion) compared to the 1998 plan of HUF137 billion (EUR548.7 million).A European Investment Bank loan would originally have financed the majority of the metro project. According to the original agreement signed in 2003 between the Budapest mayor and the then Prime Minister, the government was to put HUF153 billion (EUR611.3 million) towards the project. However the government announced last autumn that it wanted to change the financing plan to draw on EU funding to cover its 79% share, in order to meet the targets set in the convergence programme of EU economies. The tunnel, worth EUR200 million, is built for the Budapest public transportation company (BKV) by Bamco, a consortium whose members are Vinci Construction Grands Projets, its local affiliate Hidepito, and Strabag's German, Austrian and Hungarian units. Eurometro is the work supervisor. Visit www.bkv.hu, www.strabag.com and www.eurometro.hu. Click hu/11. Read E-News Weekly 7/2007, 33/2006 & 15/2006. Visit www.metro4.hu to know more. 17/07.