It's a pair as second machine breaks through
Mar 2011
Airport Link News Release
- The second TBM on the Brisbane Airport Link project in Queensland brokethrough this week to join its twin in the enormous 23m wide purpose built cavern deep underground at Wooloowin.
- With 1.25km of their 2.5km long journeys from Toombul to Lutwyche to go, the two machines, Rocksy and Sandy, have reached the half way mark of the bored tunnel section of the underground highway's alignment. Thiess John Holland Project Director Gordon Ralph congratulated the TBM tunnelling crews and said "it is now possible to walk underground from Bowen Hills to Toombul and some 12,000 of the 21,000 concrete segments produced at the project's Eagle Farm pre‐cast facility have been built into the drives to date."
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(Photograph by: Jason Vick, Project Engineer – Thiess John Holland)
Twin set of 12.48m Herrenknecht EPBMs breakthrough on the Brisbane Airport Link
- More than 70% of the project is now complete and when Airport Link opens in mid-2012, it will be the first major motorway connecting Brisbane city with the airport and northern suburbs.
Airport Link records first TBM breakthrough
Feb 2011
Airport Link News Release
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TBM Rocksy breaks through
- Another TBM highway tunnel breakthrough is recorded in Brisbane, Australia. Rocksy, the first of two TBMs working on the Airport Link project has broken through into a 23m wide purpose-built cavern deep underground at Wooloowin, marking the half way point of its 2.5km journey to Lutwyche.
- The second TBM, Sandy, is expected to break through into the Kedron caverns next month (March 2011), with the TBMs scheduled to complete their 2.5km journeys by the middle of 2012. Once finished, the cutterheads and bodies of the TBMs will be buried underneath the tunnels they have created.
- Thiess John Holland Project Director Gordon Ralph said; "It is incredible to think that since its launch from Kalinga Park in July, the TBM has excavated more than 1,200m with crews achieving rates of up to 110m a week."
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First half of the 2.5km journey complete
- To date more than 9km tunnelling has been completed across the project - with the two TBMs, Rocksy and Sandy, having excavated more than 2.2km of that. The more than 300,000m3 of muck generated by the TBMs has been transported to Nudgee Road via a 2km overland conveyor for onward disposal and a total of 11,000 pre-cast concrete segments have been build into the tunnel lining to date.
- "Inside the excavated tunnels, back‐up work has commenced to construct the smoke ducts and tunnel cross passages," said Ralph. "When this work is complete, focus will move to the installation of ventilation fans, traffic management devices and tunnel safety systems,".
- With more than 70% of the project complete, significant work is still to be completed before this critical piece of infrastructure for South East Queensland can open to traffic in mid-2012.
- Some 15 million hours have been worked and the project has surpassed its expected peak employment of a total 3,600 workers.
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Workers cheer the first TBM breakthrough
- The project, which is being designed and constructed by Thiess John Holland, along with the Northern Busway (Windsor to Kedron) and the Airport Roundabout Upgrade, is part of a massive $4.8 billion infrastructure investment on Brisbane's Northside.
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Airport Link TBM - Fast Facts
• Model: EPB
• Cutterhead diameter:12.48m - largest machines ever used in Australia
• Weight: 3,600 tonne
• Length: 195m
• Cost: $45 million
• Cutterhead dressed with 80 x 17in cutters
• About 22 workers to operate each TBM per shift
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Buried end for Airport Link TBMs - TunnelTalk, Jan 2011
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