By Ashley Karen
The Nana TBM has been lowered in the launching shaft at the Chunniganj underground station of the under-construction Chunniganj-Nayaganj underground section, as part of the Kanpur Metro Rail Project’s first corridor. Preparations are underway to launch the Nana machine in the first week of March.
This tunnel boring machine will be retrieved from the Bada Chauraha underground metro station after constructing a ‘downline’ tunnel from Chunniganj to Bada Chauraha. A retrieval shaft will be organized at Bada Chauraha to retrieve the TBM. Nana has to build a 1,264-meter-long tunnel from Chunniganj to Bada Chauraha.
The program is to launch the Nana machine in the first week of March and Tatya TBM by the last week. The significant thing is that both of these TBMs will not be retrieved after arriving at Naveen Market underground station to re-launch again from the launching shaft for tunnelling to Bada Chauraha.
The ‘Dragging’ method is said to be used to transport the Machines from one end to the other at the 215-meter-long Naveen Market underground station. TBMs are usually not removed from inside an underground metro station but are dragged out of a retrieval shaft at one end of the station and re-launched from a launching shaft at the other end. As reported, this system is used to save time.
However, the challenge with this system is that the platform level of the underground metro station from which the machine is to be pulled must have been completed.
Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation Limited (UPMRC) civil engineers have overcome this problem and made a solution, under which the platform-level construction of the Naveen Market underground metro station will be finished before the arrival of the TBM, and thus, there will be no necessity to retrieve the machine at the station.
Nana and Tatya TBMs have earlier finished the tunnel construction work between Bada Chauraha and Nayaganj in the almost 4 km long Chunniganj-Nayaganj underground section. After the start of tunnelling work in Chunniganj, these tunnel-boring machines will reach back to Bada Chauraha through Naveen Market.
Construction work is advancing quickly on the Chunniganj-Nayaganj underground section, Kanpur Central-Transport Nagar underground section and the Baradevi-Naubasta elevated section.
