By rosebell
With the aim of carrying high-speed trains travelling at 350km per hour under the river, this tunnel is designed.
As the world’s largest-diameter shield machine for high-speed rail, China’s home-built tunneling machine Linghang has reportedly driven over than 10km.
While for reaching the Yangtze River’s southern bank roughly 1km is left, this project has become the first worldwide in which a 15-metre-diameter shield machine has completed a single uninterrupted drive of 10km, China Media Group (CMG) reported.
Supporting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt,the tunnel is expected to reduce travel times between key cities along the Yangtze, including Shanghai, Nanjing and Hefei after inauguration.
“The machine incorporates an advanced tunnelling system, which enables autonomous operation through intelligent analysis and decision-making.Drawing from hundreds of historical datasets and machine-learning models, the system’s capabilities enable efficient manned supervision along with unmanned operation,” said deputy equipment manager of the project Wang Yi.
Involving adaptive pressure control in the shield chamber, cloud-based predictive data for independent decision-making and autonomous control of tunneling posture,the machine is fitted with what is described as the world’s most advanced brain system, as Science and Technology Daily reported.
These functions are said to provide more stable tunneling, slurry circulation and posture than conventional manual operation.
The same report said the system has enabled fully algorithm-based, unmanned intelligent tunneling to be used routinely, and that the project has set a world record with a monthly advance of 718m in a 15-metre-class high-speed rail tunnel.
