TunnelTec Delivers First Rock Cutter Head to CanadaOn March 28th, 2008, TunnelTec delivered after less than nine weeks its first rock cutter head to Dibco Underground Ltd further to an order received in end of January 2008. Dibco, a tunnelling contractor out of Toronto, Canada has purchased a new TunnelTec cutter head for their American Augers TBM through American Commercial Inc. (ACI), who represents TunnelTec in North America and provided guidance and consulting to Dibco along with Snyder Engineering. The 2.46 m-diameter cutter head is now complete and on the water to Canada, it is expected to be on site by the end of April, then ACI and Snyder Engineering will be on site again for its installation. Visit www.americanaugers.com, www.americancommercial.com and www.snydereng.com The TBM will excavate approx. 600 m of the 15th Street sanitary sewer siphon upgrade for the City of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. Due to the geological conditions in the bid documents, Dibco felt that the existing soft ground cutter head on the American Augers machine would not be adequate for the conditions, so it was removed and a new head for retrofitting was designed by TunnelTec.This cutter head and all tools from TunnelTec can basically be configured as a rock or a soft ground cutting head or a combination head. It is equipped with 30.5 cm front loaded disc cutters and scrapers for the rock conditions, but all cutters can be unbolted and replaced with bolt-in rippers as well for soft ground conditions. It is expected that the cutting head may actually have to be changed underground when ground conditions change from rock to soft ground. Making all tooling easily removable was therefore a necessity. All roller cutters, face and gauge rippers, bucket and face scrapers and grill bars are bolted in place, with no welding being required. This makes wear replacement, when it occurs, easier and should the cutter head have to be totally converted from hard rock to soft ground conditions, it makes this much simpler and easier. This was a request and requirement of Dibco that TunnelTec integrated into its design of the cutter head. Click here. Visit www.tunneltec.de and www.calgary.ca 18/08.