Innovation born out of necessity: the launch of hyperTunnel will see tunnels built completely differently in future, for huge global societal benefit.
hyperTunnel is a new British tunnelling technology company that’s working with the industry to completely change the way underground spaces are built, maintained, enlarged and monitored. Its highly innovative, patented, scalable approach greatly reduces the costs, risks and environmental impacts of construction and enables tunnelling projects to be carried out far more quickly, safely and with less project risk than existing methods.
hyperTunnel’s radical core concept involves 3D-printing tunnels into the ground and then removing the waste. Work is carried out not just at the face, but throughout the entire structure of a tunnel or underground space simultaneously, greatly reducing project timescales.
This approach is enabled by the application of technologies proven in other industries, including digital underground surveying, digital twinning, machine learning, 3D printing or additive manufacturing, robotics and swarm construction techniques, all supported by AI and VR.
“We expect hyperTunnel to build tunnels many times faster and at significantly less cost than the best current methods. Our IP-protected system will become a core part of how the world’s biggest tunnel builders operate. We are enablers providing the tools and systems to those who deliver the work,” says Jeremy Hammond, hyperTunnel Co-CEO.
hyperTunnel’s target market is contractors and consultants working for tunnel and underground asset owners and operators in construction and maintenance. It will sell, lease and license consultancy and engineering services, products and approaches in order to help contractors better solve their clients’ problems and improve the industry overall.
Via its automated, flexible and modular system, any tunnel construction company can quickly commission, deploy and integrate hyperTunnel into a new project – anywhere in the world.
“Tunnelling is a low-margin business and mistakes cannot be afforded. hyperTunnel is genuinely innovative. It’s really different; it’s evolving existing technologies and opening up tremendous new opportunities. But what makes it really valuable and exciting are the cost savings and reduced levels of risk,” says Peter O’Riordan, Chair of hyperTunnel’s technical board.
More information on the hyperTunnel method is available via the technical press kit.
The need for a new way to build tunnels
More than half the world’s population now lives in cities, and this is growing. By 2045, the world’s urban population will have increased by 1.5 times, to 6 billion. Space above ground is at a premium and demand for resources, energy and transport solutions is intense and increasing. Fitting new developments around existing infrastructure is difficult, hindering progress.
The answer lies beneath our feet. Underground, there is a blank slate, with acres of space available for new underground structures and modern tunnel networks for the transportation of people, goods, water and waste.
However, building tunnels with today’s methods is risky, expensive and slow. The more built-up the city and the greater the need to move underground, the harder it is to get access for construction.
“A new approach is urgently needed. hyperTunnel’s mission is to provide the technological breakthrough that will make widescale underground construction feasible and affordable. This will enable us to rethink transport, energy and city design and will unleash tremendous benefits for society,” says Steve Jordan, hyperTunnel Co-CEO.
Turning the tide: origins of hyperTunnel’s revolutionary approach
hyperTunnel’s concept is the brainchild not of tunnelling experts but renewable energy innovators.
In 2018, hyperTunnel co-founders Steve Jordan and Jeremy Hammond hit a brick wall when jointly exploring a new approach to tidal-range energy. They realised that using underground tunnels inland could overcome many of the obstacles to making tidal energy at scale a reality for the UK. However, the enormous costs, complexity and risks involved in current tunnelling methods rendered this route unviable.
It was crunch time: find ways to take out the cost and risk of tunnelling or shelve the project. Jordan decided to take a deep dive into tunnel-construction methods.
“I was amazed to discover that tunnelling methods had hardly changed in over a century. Meanwhile, some other industries were handling things differently and doing elements of tunnelling faster. I came at things from a different angle. For example, tunnellers see removing spoil from a tunnel as a problem, but if you are an ore miner, that is your revenue stream, so you get it out of the ground as quickly as possible. I asked, what can we learn from the way they do it?” explains Steve Jordan.
Jordan came up with a simple but radical concept involving the integration of existing technologies, proven in other industries, like Formula 1, mining, oil & gas, chemistry, surveying, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and robotics.
Jordan and Hammond began presenting the idea to the tunnelling industry, garnering enthusiastic responses and offers of support. Some of those leading tunnelling experts are now involved in hyperTunnel as members of the Board of Directors or Technical Board. These include Mark Carne, ex Shell and former Chief Executive of Network Rail; Peter O’Riordan, a civil and structural engineer who has led projects at London’s Crossrail 2, HS1 and HS2 schemes; and world-renowned tunnelling authority, Dr Kurt Zeidler.
With initial investment secured, company foundations established, and engineers recruited by September 2019, hyperTunnel was ready to begin work.
“In order to maintain our fresh-thinking approach, it was critical from the outset that we didn’t employ anyone with a tunnelling background. We selected people with dynamic engineering experience in innovation-rich sectors such as Formula 1, aerospace, oil & gas and geoscience. We wanted to be limited only by our imagination; not constrained by convention,” says Steve Jordan.
This included Director of Engineering Patrick Lane-Nott, whose professional experience encompasses nearly 20 years in top-level motorsport, working with the most advanced race car simulations, building digital twins for vehicle development and race strategy.
Open for business and winning contracts: hyperTunnel is gaining momentum
With a team of over 30 people, mostly engineers, currently employed across two locations in Hampshire, UK, hyperTunnel is an emerging growth company that is already serving customers with commercially-available products and services. These include patented modular elements of the hyperTunnel process such as digital surveying packages.
In January 2021, hyperTunnel won a contract to work with Network Rail on non-disruptive tunnel construction and repair work for the maintenance and improvement of regional railway infrastructure, which includes approximately 650 Victorian-age tunnels across the UK. hyperTunnel’s technique is expected to bring radical cost and delivery-time improvements, greatly reducing inconvenience for passengers.
Work is expected to start on the first completely new tunnel built with hyperTunnel’s technology by the end of 2022.
hyperTunnel is majority-owned by the founders and staff. Having had a first successful close on its recent convertible loan note (CLN) offering, hyperTunnel is currently seeking further large-scale investment to develop the business globally.
State-of-the-art facilities
In anticipation of its planned expansion, hyperTunnel moved into a 5,000 sqft (465 sqm) workspace in Basingstoke, UK, in the summer of 2019. Known as Viewpoint, the headquarters incorporates an engineering and innovation lab furnished with a range of specialist equipment and machinery for manufacturing, assembling and testing prototypes.
In January 2020, the company opened the hOLE (hyperTunnel Outdoor Learning Environment) on a site in Hampshire. The hOLE provides a fully equipped and flexible outdoor space for hyperTunnel’s engineering team to conduct experiments and scaled concept testing. Its ground-penetrating radar (GPR) test suite allows for repeatable calibration and tuning of the test device and scanning from adjacent bores, while the state-of-the-art Geolab, added in June 2020, enables most material tests and analysis to take place in house – greatly reducing the expense and time involved.
To date, two short tunnels have been built at the hOLE test facility, and the engineering team is currently working on a third scale tunnel, which is 2.5 metres in diameter.
Key business milestones
– September 2018 – hyperTunnel concept is conceived
– Summer 2019 – hyperTunnel acquires new office space and engineering lab in Basingstoke, UK
– September 2019 – first eight engineers hired
– October 2019 – former Chief Executive of Network Rail Mark Carne and successful British entrepreneur and start-up investor Nick Cremin join hyperTunnel Advisory Board
– January 2020 - concept testing starts at new hyperTunnel Outdoor Learning Environment (hOLE)
– March 2020 – Dr Kurt Zeidler appointed to Advisory Board
– June 2020 – new Geolab opens at the hOLE
– September 2020 - two more engineering innovators join the team
– October 2020 – Proof of Concept completed
– November 2020 – Peter O’Riordan, Benoit Jones, Mike King and Kurt Zeidler form new Technical Board
– December 2020 – hyperTunnel awarded contract with Network Rail
– February 2021 - Mike Devriendt, Gustav Jahnert and François Pogu join Technical Board
– April 2021 – Sven Asmus and Donal Coughlan join Technical Board
– June 2021 – Main hyperTunnel patent granted
– July 2021 – hyperTunnel awarded match-funded grant from the Department for International Trade (DIT) Internationalisation Fund Programme
– August 2021 – Bruno Combe and Greg Raines join Technical Board
– September/October 2021 – hyperTunnel exhibits at the British Tunnelling Society’s conference and exhibition.
Working with the tunnelling industry
While one of hyperTunnel’s founding principles was to avoid hiring people from the tunnelling industry, it has created a technical board with a level of expertise and experience that is unparalleled within the industry, to provide oversight and on-tap tunnelling knowledge and expertise.
Crucially, the highly experienced technical board members understand the high level business challenges faced by the sector and can feed that into hyperTunnel’s core activity, which is the development, integration and commercial application of integrated advanced technologies.
The level of interest in and excitement about hyperTunnel’s approach within the underground construction sector is demonstrated by the heavyweight names that have joined the technical board. They are:
Chair:
– Peter O’Riordan, former engineering lead at Crossrail, HS1 and HS2
Members:
– Mike Devriendt, Associate Director, Arup
– Gustav Jahnert, Innovations Manager, Bauer
– Benoit Jones, Managing Director, Inbye Engineering
– Mike King, independent tunnelling consultant
– François Pogu, Managing Director, VINCI Construction Grands Projets UK
– Götz Tintelnot, CEO TPH Bausysteme GmbH, MBCC Group
– Bruno Combe, Tunnel Technical Director, Bouygues TP
– Donal Couglan, Technical Director, Jacobs
– Greg Raines, Vice President, Stantec
– Dr Kurt Zeidler of GZ Consultants.
hyperTunnel is also working with complementary organisations within the industry to develop its methods, and has, from the initial stage, enjoyed a strategic partnership with global chemicals giant Master Builders Solutions.
“We are delighted to be a strategic partner of hyperTunnel whose approach towards tunnel construction and subsidiary applications is truly visionary. Challenging the status quo and using innovation to continually make construction safer, quicker, more sustainable and economical are shared beliefs with Master Builders Solutions,” said Cameron Bellman, Global Head Technical Marketing Underground Construction, Master Builders Solutions.
Due to its pioneering of completely new thinking in underground construction engineering, the company is actively involved in a number of academic research projects, collaborating with, among others, researchers from the University of Milano-Biccoca, the Politecnico di Milano and the University of Portsmouth.
“Together with MBS, we have been investigating many different chemical combinations and evaluating their performance at our on-site laboratory. It is fantastic to be at the heart of something so exciting, that others in this field want to study too. We have a great collective pooling of resources – from chemical formulations to specialist lab testing to the test site itself – and are creating academically-significant studies. We’re looking forward to publishing evidence of our approach in a robust way,” says hyperTunnel Senior Engineer, Dr Alkistis Karabela. Hypertunnel recently showed at the British Tunnelling Society conference in London where they were very well received to watch the video of their presentation please click here. For further information and to speak to their press contact email claire@propel-technology.com / +44 7768 773857. 40/21.
