Assessment on the performance of EPB-TBM in the construction of pilot metro line in Ho Chi Minh city (Vietnam)

Abstract

Line 1 (Ben-Thanh – Suoi-Tien) of the Ho Chi Minh city Urban Railway Project is the pilot metro in Vietnam, also the first transport tunnel constructed by the earth pressure balanced single shield tunnel boring machine (EPB-TBM), of which the outer diameter is 6.79 m. Two parallel 781-m-tunnels (West Bound and East Bound) have been constructed from May 2017. They mainly locate in loose sand layers with small SPT values and the small overburden heights: 8.7 to 9 m of the former and 8.7 to 22.3 m of the latter. EPB-TBM have proven the suitability for the metro line in such geological conditions and the narrow construction site in urban areas of Ho Chi Minh city. In this paper, for the assessment of EPB-TBM during the tunnel construction, some main operation parameters of the machine in each performance routine have been analysed and the influence of the geological conditions along the alignment to the machine journey was initially studied. The study’s goal is the better understanding of the EPB-TBM performance in the first TBM metro line in Vietnam, as an experience learning for the next ones which have been scheduled to be soon appeared in Ho Chi Minh city and Hanoi.