Hanoi starts drilling tunnel for 2nd metro line
The Hanoi Metropolitan Railway Management Board (MRB) and some contractors on Tuesday started using tunnel boring machines to drill the underground section of the Nhon – Hanoi Station metro line, the second of its kind in the capital city.
he boring operation began at Kim Ma Station at the depth of 17.8 meters.
The tunnel drilling is part of contract package CP03 to construct the underground stations and a tunnel, the MRB said, noting that the package is now 43.4 percent complete.
The main contractor of the package is the HyunDai & Ghella (HGU) consortium, while FECON Corporation is in charge of using two tunnel boring machines to drill the passage.
During the process, FECON Corporation is being assisted by experts from Tunnelpro, an Italian provider of geo-engineering and underground works services, and from the International Tunneling and Underground Space Association.
Nguyen Quoc Bao, deputy general director of FECON Corporation, said that the firm would drill a four-kilometer-long tunnel.
German manufacturer Herrenknecht designed and produced the tunnel boring machines for the Nhon – Hanoi Station metro line project.
Each machine measures over 100 meters in length and weighs some 850 metric tons.
As scheduled, after the first machine finishes drilling nearly 200 meters of the tunnel, the second one will continue the work.
After completing the drilling of 240 meters, the two machines will speed up the boring work to reach 10 meters per day.
It is estimated to take 16 months to complete the tunneling process.
A geotechnical monitoring system had previously been installed at drilling locations to monitor the movement of the machines and possible land subsidence.
As per its design, the Nhon – Hanoi Station metro line runs 12.5 kilometers from Nhon in Nam Tu Liem District to the Hanoi Railway Station in the downtown area, with 8.5 kilometers on elevated tracks, four kilometers underground, and one depot.
Work on the metro line, which costs an estimated VND34.5 trillion (US$1.4 billion), is slated for completion in 2027.
The Cat Linh – Ha Dong metro route, the first of its kind in Hanoi, was put into operation in November 2021.
By Tieu Bac & Tuan Phung – Tuoi Tre News – July 30, 2024