By Lynda Myer
Recording a monthly rate of over than 1000 meters for the construction of the San Gawang Hydropower Project in Peru, CRCHI exported the first hard rock TBM to South America on December 6.
As a part of the project for the Belt and Road Initiative in South America, the San Gawang Hydropower Station in Peru is the first Peruvian power project that has been invested in by Chinese enterprises. While production of power in this station is 1.25 billion kWh per year, its total installed capacity is 209.3 MW. following its completion and operation, one of its advantages will be improving the optimal allocation of regional water resources and the sustainable economic and social development within South America widely.
Considering the geological conditions of San Gawang Hydropower Station, this TBM with around 245m length and the cutterhead diameter of 5.83m is particularly suitable for tunneling in this area. The surrounding rock of the tunnel has good stability and the strength of the rock stratum is medium-high.
With whole cooperation of the on-site service team of CRCHI closely with the owner and the constructor over TBM assembly and launching process, the required time duration of TBMs main body assembly and pushing horizontally into the tunnel work, as well as the split starting up was less than 40 days. In order to commissioning formal operation of machine, it took only two weeks to complete the single machine launching and joint commissioning after that the TBM was switched on.
Advancing from 10m per shift to 16m and 20m per shift, the single shift advance rate of the TBM has kept breaking new records since November 2022., whereas the maximum single shift advance rate exceeded 26m and the maximum daily advance rate reached 46 m. Due to cumulative advance rate in November (1007.9 meters), the construction period has been remarkably reduced.
