The underground excavation industry is exploring mini robots, plasma torches, and superheated gas to replace the massive boring machines now in use.
for London’s recently opened Elizabeth Line railway. The machines deployed on that project weighed over 1,000 tons each and cut tunnels over 7 meters in diameter beneath the UK capital.
“We’re talking about thousands of them,” says hyperTunnel’s director of engineering, Patrick Lane-Nott. “Much like an ant colony or a termite colony works in swarms.”includes a 3D animation of the robots beavering away on some imagined subterranean structure of gargantuan proportions. But it would be rather like building tunnels in reverse. With a TBM, you first dig the hole and then add supports or walls to keep the remaining earth surrounding the void at bay.
Tunneling experts who spoke to WIRED agree that the industry is crying out for technological solutions to lower costs and heighten efficiency—it can take years to design and build a TBM and then actually dig a tunnel with it, for example. A suite of new companies promising to shake things up is emerging—from Elon Musk’s Boring Company to hyperTunnel and firms developing new high-temperature methods of blasting through the toughest rocks on Earth.
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