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

  • US$160mn World Bank credit for Rajasthan road modernisation project
    January 6, 2014
    The World Bank has made available US$160 million of credit for the Rajasthan Road Sector Modernisation Project in west India. Scheduled to finish in December 2018, the ambitious project aims to improve rural connectivity, as well as improving road safety and management in Rajasthan state. In recent years Rajasthan, India’s largest state by area and home to more than 68 million people, is said by the World Bank to have made considerable progress with developing its rural roads under the Prime Minister’s Gra
    Read More
  • Sunderland’s New Wear Crossing takes shape
    February 16, 2017
    The New Wear Crossing will be the first bridge to be built over the River Wear in Sunderland, UK, for more than 40 years Raising the bridge’s 100m-tall pylon promised to be a stunning visual sight, but also a tricky operation dictated by extremely variable local weather. World Highways went to press just before the operation, but not before the pylon had arrived by barge on January 7. It had completed a two-day crossing of the often unpredictable North Sea from the Belgian port of Ghent where it was f
    Read More
  • New bridge opening in Russian city St Petersburg
    April 6, 2017
    An important bridge link is opening in the Russian city of St Petersburg shortly. The Yakhtenny Bridge over the Bolshaya Nevka River in St Petersburg will open to traffic on 1st June 2017. The bridge is undergoing testing once the asphalt surface, guardrails and lighting work has been completed. The bridge is being built by contractor Pylon at a cost of some US$33 million. The new bridge will provide a link from the city’s Primorsky district to the new stadium on Krestovsky Island under construction for the
    Read More
  • World’s largest bridge deck for KAIA expansion
    December 16, 2013
    A bespoke formwork solution from RMD Kwikform is playing a key role in creating the largest ever airport cast bridge deck as part of the multi-billion dollar expansion of King Abdulaziz International Airport near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The firm is also a leading player in the creation of arterial tunnels under the airport’s elevated roads, another key part of the project’s first phase works due for completion in 2014. Guy Woodford reports
    Read More

Highlighted Content