MMC-Gamuda has emerged the winner of an international innovation award for its variable density tunnel boring machine (VD TBM) that overcame major Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) tunnelling challenges posed by the karstic limestone formation.
The annual Technical Innovational of the Year award was given by the London-based New Civil Engineer and the Switzerland-based International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association.
MMC Gamuda KVMRT (T) Sdn Bhd director Datuk Paul Ha Tiing Tai attributed the win to the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention”.
“We knew the challenges and risks posed to tunnelling the karstic limestone in Kuala Lumpur are unique to us. TBMs are manufactured worldwide for 100 cities, but none of them are equipped to face the challenges that we face in Kuala Lumpur.
“We knew from the onset that we have to take it upon ourselves to initiate and develop the modifications in conventional TBMs to better handle the risks in Kuala Lumpur,” said Ha, while adding that MMC-Gamuda’s close collaboration with Herrenknecht AG allowed the development of the variable density range of machines at the University of Bochum in Germany.
“Even though the tests (in the University of Bochum) were successful, it still required ac tual on-site tunnelling performance to be the real arbiter of this innovation. The recent completion of our tunnelling in karstic limestone (for SBK Line) and Technical Innovation Award are proof of the success of this innovation,” said Ha.
The VD TBMs’ success resulted in a 95 per cent reduction in the incidence of sinkholes for the MRT SBK Line compared with tunnelling for the Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) back in 2003, under the same geological conditions.
From the six karstic limestone drives totalling 7.5km for SBK Line, only two minor incidences took place with the VD TBM, compared with the more than 41 sinkhole incidents caused by the 9km tunnelling journey during the construction of SMART.
Herrenknecht AG founder and chairman Dr-Ing E.h. Martin Herrenknecht said the proposed idea of a new VD TBM technology by MMC-Gamuda’s engineers provided the motivation behind the achievement.
Other companies shortlisted were AECOM Asia Co (Hong Kong), Arup, Atkins and QuantumBlack (UK), Grounforce/Costain Skanska (UK), Monitor Optics Systems (UK), Senceive (UK), SWS Engineering S.p.A (Italy), and Volker Stevin International (Netherlands).