The engineers behind the new Hypertunnel method aim to shake up the tunnelling status quo…
High tunnelling costs are also linked to the size and speed of the machinery. Last year, UK start-up company Hypertunnel started making waves when it unveiled a system it believes could revolutionise tunnel building.
Hypertunnel director of engineering Patrick Lane-Nott says: “The reality is that while tunnelling has seen iterative development since the first boring machine came to the fore, the fundamentals of the actual method haven’t changed. We believe that there are some real opportunities to grasp some of the technologies that are readily available today, but currently being used in other industries, to help boost and improve the overall tunnelling process.”
These include horizontal directional drilling, underground surveying, digital twins, artificial intelligence, swarm robotics, 3D printing, dragline and autonomous technologies. A combination of these forms the new Hypertunnel approach. The onsite Hypertunnel process begins with the drilling of index bores to produce core samples along the entire tunnel path. The horizontal directional drilling method used for this is a well known trenchless technique for installing pipelines and utilities. This technology can drill up to around 1.3m diameter, 4km long tunnels.
Instead of geotechnical investigations undertaken from the surface, the Hypertunnel approach aims to get a detailed picture of the geology and ground conditions from within the ground itself.