Recently, the world's largest diameter high-speed rail slurry balance shield machine "Pilot" successfully rolled off the assembly line in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and will be put into use for the construction of the Chongtai Yangtze River Tunnel of the new Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei high-speed railway.
The cutterhead diameter of the "Pilot" shield machine is 15.4 meters, the main engine is about 15.8 meters long, the total length is about 128 meters, and the main engine weighs about 2,600 tons, which is the world's longest single-head tunneling distance (11.325 kilometers), the largest diameter (15.4 meters), and the deepest (89 meters) high-speed rail tunnel shield machine that crosses the Yangtze River. The status of the equipment can be felt and known, marking that the intelligent construction level of the continental shield tunnel has reached a new height. The "Pilot" shield machine was jointly developed by China Railway Tunnel Bureau and China Railway Engineering Equipment Group.
The Chongtai Yangtze River Tunnel is a control project of the Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei high-speed railway, and it is also the project with the longest contract period on the whole line. The tunnel connects Chongming District, Shanghai and Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, with a total length of 14,250 meters and a design speed of 350 kilometers per hour.
The tunnel length of the shield construction section is 13,201 meters, of which the underwater section is 11,325.5 meters and the land section is 1,875.5 meters. The shield starts from the No. 3 well in Chongming District, Shanghai, crosses the Yangtze River with a single head of 11,325.5 meters, and arrives at the No. 2 shaft in Taicang City, Jiangsu Province.
The "Pilot" shield machine passes through weak, gas-containing harmful gases and high water pressure permeable formations under the Yangtze River, and faces engineering and technical problems such as slurry circulation, material transportation, precise control of tunnel axis, ultra-long-distance tunneling, ventilation management, synchronous lining and safety guarantee in later operation. The project construction management unit, Shanghai-Hangzhou Passenger Specialized Company, together with the project department of the construction unit China Railway Tunnel Bureau, has carried out targeted design for the durability, sealing, safety, visualization, multi-system, intelligence, and perception of the "Pilot" shield machine, so as to realize the synchronous pushing and fighting, unmanned driving, intelligent health monitoring and real-time perception, intelligent hoisting, intelligent automatic assembly and automatic attitude control of the shield tunneling. According to the project construction plan, the "Pilot" shield machine will be dismantled and transported to the construction site of the No. 3 shaft of the Chongtai Yangtze River Tunnel for reassembly, and it is expected that the cross-river excavation construction will start in April this year.
The Shanghai-Nanjing-Hefei high-speed railway is the eastern section of the Shanghai-Chongqing-Rong high-speed railway and an important part of the high-speed rail corridor along the Yangtze River of the national "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network. After the completion of the project, a new fast channel will be built between the Shanghai metropolitan area, the Nanjing metropolitan area and the Hefei metropolitan area, which is of great significance for optimizing the layout of the railway network along the Yangtze River, serving the coordinated development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and promoting the integrated and high-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta.
Source: Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of China Railway Shanghai Bureau Group Co., Ltd. Shanghai-Hangzhou Railway Passenger Line Co., Ltd
Text: Xu Wenfeng, Yu Jianbo
Editor: Yin Chao Review: Tao Binbin Producer: Yang Xin