Order for world's largest TBM

Russian operator company NCC (Nevskaya Concession Company) has placed an order with German manufacturer Herrenknecht for the world's largest tunnel boring machine (TBM). The Mixshield TBM, for construction of the Orlovski Tunnel, "will surpass all previous TBMs" with a diameter of 19.25m and it is designed to construct a mega-tunnel to link both halves of the centre of Russia's second city St Petersburg under the River Neva and speed up traffic.
April 10, 2012 Read time: 2 mins

Russian operator company NCC (Nevskaya Concession Company) has placed an order with German manufacturer Herrenknecht for the world's largest tunnel boring machine (TBM).

The Mixshield TBM, for construction of the Orlovski Tunnel, "will surpass all previous TBMs" with a diameter of 19.25m and it is designed to construct a mega-tunnel to link both halves of the centre of Russia's second city St Petersburg under the River Neva and speed up traffic.

At the contract signing, entrepreneur Martin 2592 Herrenknecht met the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the city at a high level business meeting.

"Prime Minister Putin wanted to find out at first-hand about the gigantic automobile tunnel project, an extremely challenging construction project under the River Neva," says Herrenknecht.

The TBM contract is the biggest single order in the company's history and represents a huge technical challenge, which "has been well prepared by extremely thorough, intensive preparatory engineering collaboration between the customer and the contractor." Including the back-up the Herrenknecht Mixshield will be 82m long, and on its own the tunnelling shield will weigh around 3,800tonnes and deliver 8,400kW drive power to the cutting wheel.

The leap in diameter to 19.25m will enable the machine to excavate 600m³ of soil hourly, and the excavation area is said to be more than 50% larger than that for the largest TBM currently in operation in the world.

"A Mixshield is the quickest and safest solution for driving the around 1km-long tunnel bore under the Neva in the face of the high groundwater pressures. An extremely ambitious timetable has been set for implementation of the project," says Herrenknecht.

Tunnelling is set to begin in St Petersburg in the spring of 2013 with the tunnel due to be taken into operation in 2016.

At present, vehicles have to use the various bridges in order to cross the River Neva from the city centre to the northern districts and the orbital freeway.

The mega-tunnel, with two three-lane carriageway levels will considerably improve the traffic capacity.
Road Structures

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Cost reductions on Russian highways
    July 12, 2012
    Major cost reductions are being seen on some key highway projects in Russia including the new ring road project in St Petersburg, where the reduction is US$192.31 million. The management of the ring road in St Petersburg has signed an agreement with the main contractors (Flora, the corporation Inzhtransstroy) to cut costs by 12-17.6% in 2009-2010. The 12% reduction is equivalent to US$32.05 million and will apply to contractors that are to complete facilities in 2009. Meanwhile the 17.6% cut is for work pla
    Read More
  • TBMs cut routes through Wuxi
    May 29, 2013
    Often used in road construction in China, eight Herrenknecht tunnel boring machines (TBMs) have now excavated almost 16km of tunnel in 20 months. The machines mastered challenging tunnelling stretches with small overburdens, crossing beneath the emerging metropolis of Wuxi, eastern China, to excavate the first two metro lines in the 3,000-year-old town on Taihu Lake, near Shanghai. Lines 1 and 2, with a total length of 58.5km, are expected to start operation in 2014. A total of five metro lines are planned.
    Read More
  • Russia seeks outside investment in road building
    November 6, 2012
    The Russian road building industry is on the verge of big changes as it bids to improve quality and speed of construction says Eugene Gerden The Russian road building industry is on the verge of big changes as the national government considers creating conditions to attract foreign companies to build roads in the country. According to a recent order of President Vladimir Putin, due to poor quality and high cost of road construction, there is a need for the development of a mechanism to attract foreign compa
    Read More
  • Kapsch secures deal for Westgate Tunnel tolling roadside systems
    June 4, 2019
    Kapsch TrafficCom Australia will deliver the tolling roadside system for the West Gate Tunnel Project under construction in Melbourne, Australia. Kapsch TrafficCom Australia was contracted by CPB Contractors John Holland Joint Venture to deliver the technology. It will be based upon the company’s single gantry multilane free-flow platform and next-generation stereoscopic vision technology for both vehicle detection and classification as well as automatic number plate recognition. “Almost 20 years ago Kaps
    Read More

Highlighted Content