China's high-speed rail technology goes overseas

A shield tunneling machine was put into operation at the construction site of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project in Indonesia on March 31, marking the first piece of China's high-speed rail technology to go overseas.

When the slurry balance shield machine, which has a diameter of 13.19 meters, slowly turned, it announced the successful realization of POWERCHINA's "3.31" visualization goal of the project.

To avoid affecting operations of a nearby local military and civilian airport, the high-speed rail line was transferred to the underground line of the No 1 tunnel about 2.6 kilometers away from the starting station Halim, and adopted the single-hole and double-line shield construction method.

POWERCHINA staff celebrates the launching of the tunnel-boring machine for the No 1 tunnel of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway project in Indonesia on March 31. [Photo/POWERCHINA]

To achieve this, China's high-speed rail builders ordered the first overseas shield machine to be made in Jiangsu province, which also set a new record for the largest diameter of an overseas shield machine exported by China.

Since the arrival of the shield tunneling machine at the construction site on March 4, POWERCHINA staff began on-site installation that day and completed the downhole assembly and commissioning in less than a month, successfully rotating the cutterhead on March 31 with tunneling capacity.

According to the "3.31" target requirements, the rail line undertaken by POWERCHINA aspired to complete the visualization of key construction sites such as the No 1 tunnel, No 2 grand bridge, and No 1 beam field before the end of March.