CREG wins world’s top tunnel award in 2018

China Railway Engineering Equipment Group (CREG) won an award for technical project innovation at the ITA Tunnelling Awards 2018 ceremony on Nov 7 at Chuzhou, East China's Anhui province.

The ITA Tunneling Awards are the top prizes in the tunneling field around the world. The award means that the group’s shield machine has gained international recognition.

CREG wins an award for technical project innovation at the ITA Tunneling Awards 2018 ceremony.[Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

The machine is made in a horseshoe shape with a large section and was first used in a loess mountain tunnel during construction of an important section of the Inner Mongolia-Jiangxi railway at Baicheng township, Jingbian county, China's Shaanxi province. It is a targeted invention by CREG for specific complicated engineering construction.

The Baicheng tunnel is a single-hole two-line electrified railway tunnel, with a length of 3,345 m. Its location in northeast China causes security problems due to strong winds, many sandy areas and soft soils. For this reason experts responsible for the projects decided to excavate the tunnel by an innovative shield machine instead of traditional methods before beginning work in 2015.

ITA Tunneling Awards 2018 ceremony is held on Nov 7 at Chuzhou, East China's Anhui province.[Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

The shield tunnel machine is globally innovative, not only because of its larger sections but also its horseshoe shape which reduces the excavation areas by 20 to 30 percent compared with round section machines.

On Jan 26, 2018, the loess mountain tunnel, with the length of 3,065 meters, was cut through from one end to the other. The success was a good example for tunnel excavation under the same geological conditions and was a great achievement in the history of railway tunnel construction technologies and equipment.

The horseshoe-shape shield machine with a large section[Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

The International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association (ITA) was founded in 1974 at Lausanne, Switzerland. It is a non-profit NGO active in tunnel and underground projects and has world influence in the field.

The ITA has 73 member states, four committees, and 21 current working groups. It holds a world tunneling meeting and member states meeting every year. It has been giving the ITA Tunneling Awards since 2015.

Baicheng tunnel, a single-hole two-line electrified railway tunnel[Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

(Executive editor: Hao Wen)