By Ashley Karen
The CREG hard rock TBM celebrated a successful breakthrough at Funing pumped storage power station tunnel project in October. The TBM is 9.53-m diameter and completed a complex portion of the project that contained a tight 90-m radius curved drive.
CREG customized the large-diameter hard rock TBM for an extremely tight radius curve for the Funing pumped storage power station project in Hebei province, China, for overwhelming construction problems including compressive strength of rock, high quartz content and small radius curve. This machine is designed with a minimum curve radius of 90 m and a max gradient of 9.02%. In addition, with a small radius tunnel belt conveyor and mature support system, this boring machine can achieve efficient digging, stable mucking and rapid support.
Since its launch in October, the machine bored a total of 2225.8 m, achieving a max monthly advance of 303 m and a max daily advance of 21.7 m. In the interim, six extremely tight curves with a radius of 100 m, and one with a radius of 90 m were completed.
The installed capacity of the Funing pumped storage power station is 1200 MW in total. Once finished, it will effectively reduce the increasingly serious peak-regulation contradiction of the power grid in the northern area of Hebei Province, keep the standard coal consumption of thermal power stations in the region, and enhance the quality of the atmospheric environment.
