Tunnel Boring Machines: Trends in Design and Construction of Mechanical Tunnelling

Book excerpt: In the past ten years there was a worldwide trend towards increased use of Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM's). This trend covers a broad variety of applications ranging both from small diameters for sewers and other utilities to large diameters for double track railway and even three-lane highway tunnels. The response to this has been the development of both hard rock machines in the direction for application in soft ground, and soft ground TBM's to be used in soft rock. Parallel to the technical development of TBM's towards applications for longer tunnels, running through changing geological conditions, there are needs for the development of lining methods. 'TBM Tunnel Trends' an international lecture serie collection, aims to present the latest scientific and practical state of the art of TBM tunnelling, taking into consideration interactions between machinery and lining. 26 international highly recognized papers.