April 4, 2021 -  On the morning of March 31, 2021, the DZ823 and DZ838 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM)s jointly built by Yanchang Petroleum Group, China Coal No. 3 Construction, China Railway 15th Bureau and China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. rolled off the assembly line in Changsha Second Industrial Park of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry. The production of these two pieces of equipment marks the first time that TBM’s will be used in the construction of long-distance slopes in coal mines, setting a precedent for the use of TBM’s in such inclined shafts.

At the launching ceremony, Feng Hua, deputy general manager of Shaanxi Yanchang Petroleum and Mining Co., Ltd., announced that the equipment manufacture was complete. Wen Fucheng, deputy general manager of China Coal Third Construction (Group) Co., Ltd., deputy general manager of China Railway 15th Bureau Group Co., Ltd., Lin Zhengqiu, General Manager of Central China Regional Headquarters, Cheng Yongliang, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry, delivered speeches successively, and Wu Zhi, General Manager of Mine Equipment R&D and Operation Center of Railway Construction Heavy Industry presided over the ceremony. China Railway Construction Heavy Industry secondary consulting Liu Haihua, China Coal Xi’an Design Project and more than 40 guests from China Railway Fourth Survey and Design Institute Group Co., Ltd., China Coal Shaanxi Zhongan Project Management Co., Ltd., China Construction News and other units attended the ceremony.

The excavation diameter of DZ823 and DZ838 TBM’s is 7.13m, the length of the whole machine is 130m, and the installed power is 3,800 kw. The project is divided into two tunnels, the main inclined shaft and the auxiliary inclined shaft. The tunnel length is 5.3km, and the slope is 6 degrees. The project delivered the characteristics of good construction safety, fast excavation speed, high quality of roadway, and environmental protection.

These two machines are the country's first set of coal mine inclined shaft TBM’s, which will be used in the construction of the main and auxiliary inclined shafts of the Cocoa Mining Industry. China Railway Construction Heavy Industry understanding the construction technology requirements of the coal industry, combined knowledge of the geological conditions of the Cocoa Coal Mine with the rich construction and technical experience of China Railway Construction. The machines are equipped with an improved foam system and a large-scale inclined well drainage system, as well as a series of specific features such as bolting rig support system, steel arch assembly system, spray mixing system, panel-type hard rock cutter head with small aperture ratio. These will effectively solve the problems created by the weakness of surrounding rock and mudstone cutter head in the coal mine area in addition to the inclined shaft, reverse slope drainage, large support capacity and other construction challenges, while meeting the requirements of machine safety, as well as providing an effective guarantee for safe and efficient tunneling production. It is the intelligent frontier that China Railway Construction Heavy Industry has integrated with shield manufacturing technology for many years.

Before manufacture took place, China Railway Construction Heavy Industry, Yanchang Petroleum, China Coal No. 3 Construction, China Railway 15th Bureau and other units held technical seminars, and visited the digital command and monitoring center, digging-anchor integrated machine and cantilever in the second industrial park of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry. The road-header production has laid a solid foundation for follow-up cooperation.

The successful production of TBM’s in inclined shafts of coal mines for the first time in China not only marks the further maturity of China Railway Construction Heavy Industry’s intelligent TBM customized development level for different geological conditions and projects, but also the Yanchang Petroleum Group, China Coal No. 3 Construction Co., Ltd. and China Railway No. 10 The Fifth Bureau and China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. This is a good start for sincere cooperation in the field of TBM’s. The equipment not only fills the gap in the TBM construction of inclined shafts in domestic coal mines, but also leads the transformation of construction methods in the development of rock tunnels in the global coal industry promoting the improvement of the level of intelligent equipment in the industry.

China's Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) technology on display