Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 127 posts

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#31

Post by Gare »

ttyyzz wrote: post #14

Funnily enough, my father is at the 11th international symposium on “Ground Freezing” in London at this very moment. Most of the time you have to freeze the ground before you can drill. He has been working in specialist civil engineering for many years and builds tunnels all over the world. He has told me many exciting and hard-to-believe stories about tunnel construction and tunnel boring machines. E.g. during the w…

> E.g. during the work on the Eurotunnel. Here the British tunnel boring machine was diverted into the rock near half the length of the tunnel and left there. It was cheaper than somehow taking it out again.

AFAIK it was not just the cost, but the problem of two TBMs (British and French) meeting head to head. The british were driven out of the way so that the French ones could proceed.

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#32

Post by pstuart »

mmanfrin wrote: post #21

It's essentially a long ad for the company that makes the machines, but this video (and some of the others they've put out) are fascinating and describe the whole process of tunnel making (with a very high production value): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AV2NcyX7pk

A subterranean submarine: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#33

Post by ant6n »

kortilla wrote: post #19
ttyyzz wrote: post #14

Funnily enough, my father is at the 11th international symposium on “Ground Freezing” in London at this very moment. Most of the time you have to freeze the ground before you can drill. He has been working in specialist civil engineering for many years and builds tunnels all over the world. He has told me many exciting and hard-to-believe stories about tunnel construction and tunnel boring machines. E.g. during the w…

You could have added a boring pun to this boring comment.

But that would be boring.

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#34

Post by ggm »

L.T.C. Rolt's biography of I.K Brunel is in its first section really a biography of Marc, the development of one of the worlds first production lines (the block factory at the Portsmouth docks, some of the machines are now in the Science Museum london and the factory is a grade I listed building. His boot factory cost him big-time when the war ended) -And covers the thames tunnel digging in some detail.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1828514

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#35

Post by ggm »

The projection for boring company is interesting at least. They seem to argue most of the "wins" are procedural, and relate to business practices, paperwork and general business efficiency, the "we can do 1km a day" claims not withstanding (they don't claim this. But, it is definitely an out-there claim of their speed) -The reality of the equipment and process they use is still an advance on most, but it's more normal pace of improvement not the 10x people like to dream about.

I wish we had the "Thunderbirds" Corkscrew TBM. Michael Moorcock writes about subterranian ground-melting craft too in his multiverse 'Oswald Bastable' series.

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#36

Post by Aeolun »

teruakohatu wrote: post #6

> During construction of the Hudson River Tunnel in 1889, 25% of the workers died from decompression sickness. Less interesting but of far greater value to humanity has been the innovation in heath and safety regulations. According to this article [1] one worker died per foot of the Hudson River Tunnel. > In 1906, attitudes toward the sandhogs changed after a series of accidents beneath the East River. Blown-out tunn…

You’d think that they’d stop working if they saw 1/4th of their compatriots just drop dead.

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#37

Post by thombat »

ben_w wrote: post #24
rolph wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes crops will have to be included, as well as a, cohort of supportive biotypes. very much a noahs ark scenario, but we may best use a number of avenues, such as exoplanetary colonies.

There is nothing that we can do to this planet that would render the environment a tenth as inhospitable as any known other planet. IIRC we've not even found one that has free oxygen in the atmosphere yet. Even if we did, anything with that and water would be extremely exiting by the standards of exoplanets, even if it had an average temperature of 75 C which would kill humans.

Being the splendidly reactive stuff that it is, molecular oxygen doesn't survive very long in any atmosphere: generally there's always something that needs oxidising. So it's thought to be a good indicator of life, only arising on Earth after photosynthesis began:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#38

Post by mschuster91 »

Aeolun wrote: post #36
teruakohatu wrote: post #6

> During construction of the Hudson River Tunnel in 1889, 25% of the workers died from decompression sickness. Less interesting but of far greater value to humanity has been the innovation in heath and safety regulations. According to this article [1] one worker died per foot of the Hudson River Tunnel. > In 1906, attitudes toward the sandhogs changed after a series of accidents beneath the East River. Blown-out tunn…

You’d think that they’d stop working if they saw 1/4th of their compatriots just drop dead.

It was a well-paid job for the time. Most of dangerous or otherwise physically taxing construction jobs still are well-paid, and for good reason.

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#39

Post by mckn1ght »

What an awesome writeup. Just wanted to add a link to a good website tracking the progress of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel expansion project, something near and dear to me as someone who has suffered much frustration driving through the current one. The three bridge tunnels around HR themselves are pretty cool engineering feats. I found the explainers at this website about the TBM in use quite interesting.

- the main project site: https://hrbtexpansion.org/

- TBM page: https://hrbtexpansion.org/tunnel-boring/

I can no longer find the exact page there that has the details of the TBM but these are pretty close:

- good slide with diagram: https://www.virginiadot.org/VDOT/Business/asset_upload_file1...

- some cool stuff but lots of broken links: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/transportation/hrbt.html

Re: The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

#40

Post by cyberax »

teruakohatu wrote: post #6

> During construction of the Hudson River Tunnel in 1889, 25% of the workers died from decompression sickness. Less interesting but of far greater value to humanity has been the innovation in heath and safety regulations. According to this article [1] one worker died per foot of the Hudson River Tunnel. > In 1906, attitudes toward the sandhogs changed after a series of accidents beneath the East River. Blown-out tunn…

This was not so much health and safety regulation-related, but simple ignorance. The dangers of rapid decompression were not recognized until early 20-th century when underwater construction became more common.

That's why "decompression sickness" is called "caisson sickness" in several languages.

Post reply on HN