powerful machines readied for channel tunnel

Paul Horvitz and the New York Times report in particular.
1987 This is a digital version of an article from The Times Print Archive, before it starts online in 1996.
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Hundreds of French and British engineers are preparing for a brutal, hot, humid and deafening grind that is expected to last for centuries --old dream -
A tunnel under the English Channel
If they are scheduled to appear in early 1990s, the high-speed shuttle will link Britain to the continent;
Visitors departing from central London may eventually arrive in central Paris within three hours.
The tunnel work, tentatively scheduled for December.
1, involving large-scale complex engineering and logistics.
The large tunnel boring machine is specially designed for the geology of the bottom of the tunnel, and engineers have designed new methods to prevent the tunnel from flooding during construction.
The progress of the project has made the work \"not as big a tunnel construction challenge as it is now,\" said Colin Kirkland, technical director of the consortium European tunnel, composed of French and British banks, this will fund and operate the system. But Mr.
Kirkland said that for the first time in a failed effort in the 1950s s he worked on \"This poor project,\" adding, \"The complexity of the project is humbling.
\"Funding tunnels, docks, tracks and specially designed double-deck roads will require nearly $10 billion in advertising
Deck trains that will transport cars and trucks.
Although the consortium plans to secure a key $1, most of the financing is in place.
Billion shares in November 20.
Nevertheless, on both sides of the channel, there is no doubt that the project will move forward.
Advertising deals-
Link, a company that designs and will build tunnels, has built a huge shaft in Sangart, near Calais, France.
The shaft is 55 m in diameter and 70 m in depth.
11 tunnel rigs, of which 1,300-
Tons of behemoth, which cost up to $42 million per pair, will take more than three years to get their job done.
In the process, 7.
8 million cubic meters of soil
Enough to build three other great pyramids in Egypt.
Will be dragged to the water
About 700,000 concrete and cast iron module sections will be dumped from assembly lines in the UK and France to lay lines for the pipeline.
This passage will actually be three parallel tubes, one for service, two for trains, each 52 kilometres long, from one terminal near fol Stone, UK to another terminal near Calais, France.
The European railway company will pay the European tunnel for the right to send trains through the tunnel.
Eurotunnel will operate space shuttles carrying cars, trucks and other commercial vehicles.
These shuttles may depart every six minutes during peak periods.
The train will run through two main pipes.
For ventilation, maintenance and escape, a narrow service tunnel will run between them.
A series of pipes, sir.
Kirkland said it was the first in modern tunnel engineering to connect two main pipes every 250 m.
He said it would ease the air pressure that had accumulated before the train crossing the tunnel.
When the two trains pass in the opposite direction, the damper at the end of the pipe will close.
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The pressure of the service tunnel will remain above the pressure of the main tunnel.
Keep it without smoke or smoke if something goes wrong.
The origin of IdeaSome dates back to the 18 th century.
A French engineer envisioned laying a candlelight underground passage for a carriage with air shafts leading to the sea.
In 1881, tunnel drilling began on both coasts of the UK, but the project stopped in the second year because of concerns that there might be an invasion route.
Until 1955, British talent formally abandoned defense.
Relevant objections, and in 1957, the British Channel tunnel research team
The French consortium was born. Mr.
Kirkland joined the engineering department in his early 20 s.
The project was abandoned in 1975 as the British economy grew. Mr.
Kirkland went on to do other tunnel work.
The optimism about this tunnel attempt depends largely on the geology of the English Channel.
\"Today\'s tunnel drill is very beautiful,\" Kirkland said.
\"We have this benign and beautiful rock formation almost all the way through the Strait . \"Kirkland said.
The bottom of the strait is formed by a relatively soft limestone called chalk mud ash.
\"This is a beautiful thing,\" Kirkland said.
Faults and joints are tight, and water seepage is rare.
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If everything goes according to plan, then the first tunnel boring machine is still not working. B. M.
This winter, \"\" will be put together into a shaft near fol stone.
Others will follow at the bottom of the sungart shaft.
Electricity-
The driven machine will be assembled and sealed to the surface of the rock.
The tunnels on each coast will then extend in stages to the interior, leading to the marina and the coast.
Robins in Kent, wosh
, Is working with Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd to design the most complex drilling rig for European tunnels
Markham & Company, Tokyo and UK.
Modern measurement technology makes it \"inevitable\" that tunnels from Britain and France are no more than 10 inch away, sir. Kirkland said.
Each driver will start from the surface using normal optical measurement technology.
Underground, the laser fixed on the tunnel wall will be aligned with the reference point back to the surface and forward to the target at the back of each tunnel machine.
The computer on the tunnel machine analyzes the laser readings and corrects any drift immediately when the machine\'s rotary cutter cuts and cuts chalk.
Advertising behind each TB. M.
It will be a rolling assembly line running 750 feet kilometers. Fist-
The size of the chalk block will go through the cutting head into the conveyor belt and then land with a \"muck cart\", which will roll on the track to the surface.
The line assembly of the tunnel will flow on the parallel track.
\"We will have to have a major freight operation in the tunnel before the tunnel is opened,\" Mr. Kirkland said.
Some abandoned soil will be used to level the construction site.
In Britain, the rest will fall behind an extended wall at the bottom of a cliff near Dover.
In France, a coastal valley still pitted with World War II bombs is being used to buy toothpastelike muck.
Boring weather near the French coast will be the biggest challenge.
There, chalk ash falls off the tunnel path, allowing the machine to cut five kilometers of broken chalk at a height with water under pressure.
The recently designed boring machine swallows wet chalk and forms a slurry behind the cutting head to offset the water pressure in front of the cutting head. These \'\'earth-
When the last Channel Tunnel project started in 1973, the pressure balance machine did not exist, and two years later the UK suspended the project in economic action.
Since then, similar machines have cut off the \"wet rock\" project in Japan, as well as subway tunnels in Lyon, Frankfurt and Washington. Kirkland said.
The knife head on RobbinsKawasaki T. B. M.
We will have 49 rolling discs and 236 picks.
The disc slices the rock, the pick cuts off the block and slides back.
In wet rocks, boring machines push forward from the edge of the tunnel lining, extending from the side of the machine a hydraulic \"clamping plate\" like a short thick leg \".
T. all-weather operation of the European tunnelB. M.
The average growth rate is expected to increase by about 1.
5 metres an hour
In the advertisement on the Robins machine, the scrap will be pushed back by a spiral, moving the chalk block to the traditional conveyor.
If water is encountered, even the machine that will pass through a dry part of the British rock can be sealed.
The operator clicks the panic button and in less than a minute the shield surrounds the surface of the machine.
Robins is producing T. B. M.
It can work quickly in dry rocks, or like hollow tin cans, extend the shield on the rotary cutter in wet rocks.
Other machines for the project were designed by James Howden of Glasgow.
Another Tokyo company, Komatsu Co. , Ltd.
For \"wet-
The ground machine that keeps the water outside the shield.
Rubber seals also wear out, so the rear edges of the shield are wrapped in a series of narrow steel brushes, and many brush fabrics can be used to isolate the edges of the door.
The brush will be surrounded by oil-
Base material for waterproofing.
The service tunnel is scheduled to meet at the end of 1990.
The last 50 will be tired of hands-
The exercise of \"closing the investigation\" was held.
Once the line of sight is established, T. B. M.
\'S will be manually turned to each other with the extension of the \"tin can.
The jar will continue to be buried, the boring machine will be removed, and the final lining part will be erected.
A version of this article appears on page C00001, country edition, October 6, 1987, with the title: a powerful machine for channel tunnels.