By Lynda Myer
As Australia’s first autonomous TBM, TBM Betty has been launched on Sydney Metro West, while it is the third of six TBMs now in the ground for the project.
The Herrenknecht TBM, named after Australian Olympian Betty Cuthbert, will build the section of tunnel between Sydney Olympic Park and Westmead, via the Clyde Stabling Maintenance Facility and Parramatta Metro Station.
In order to automatically steering, operating and monitoring the machine, it is equipped with sophisticated artificial intelligence software. While an operator remains in control of the TBM, the autonomous algorithm takes on the machine’s repetitive tasks, increasing speed and improving accuracy.
With 170m length the weekly performance of TBM Betty will be around 180m excavating the 4.5km to Sydney Olympic Park to complete the first leg of its journey.
Considering that the Gamuda Australia and Laing O’Rourke Consortium has the contract for the Western Tunnelling works, it is also going to start up another TBM at Clyde to excavate the second metro tunnel alongside Betty in the future months. Following arrival of the TBMs at Sydney Olympic Park, they are due to be retrieved and returned to Clyde, where they will be relaunched in the opposite direction towards Westmead.
The quantity of material that has been removed at the Clyde TBM launch site from the 130m-long, 20m wide and 28m-deep box to prepare for TBM Betty’s launch is approximately 138,000 tones.
The first two TBMs on Sydney Metro West has been commissioned by the Acciona Ferrovial joint venture, which has the Central Tunnelling package, in June 2023. The two double-shield, hard rock machines include refurbished cutterheads, front shields and gripper shields cutterheads from the TBMs used on the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project.
After inaugurating the passenger services in 2030, Sydney Metro West is scheduled to double rail capacity between Sydney’s two biggest CBDs.
