BORING CO COMPETITION 2025 | MECHANISED TUNNELLING


benefit analysis, doing 3D CAD design of the machine, to manufacturing and working with different contractors to assemble and test it.” While the Not-a-Boring Competition’s target remains


30m, TUM Boring’s ultimate goal is to drill 100m in the contest. The organisation is currently recruiting students for a new team but whether it enters the 2026 competition is yet to be decided. The decision depends on finding competent people willing to give up their free time for the project – and funding. Committing to the competition and transporting equipment from Germany to Texas is no small undertaking. Taking part in the competition is fun, and stressful,


said Blanke. “The timeline is tight and we have only one shot. The


equipment is so expensive and so heavy we can only build it once,” he said. “And we can only do optimisation in the design phase; once manufacturing starts we have to make it work somehow.” “We also have to raise funding and get all the


companies to deliver their parts – for free and often in record delivery times.” The logistics of shipping to Texas is another challenge,


and one of the most stressful aspects of the project, said Blanke. “The majority of teams are based in the US so they


put their machines on a trailer and don’t have shipping logistics,” he said. Shipping time cuts the team’s testing period by about


six weeks and adds an element of uncertainty. The logistics of shipping from Europe to the US is


something Swissloop Tunneling has also experienced. The team, based at ETH Zurich, ships their 23 tonnes of equipment from Switzerland to Texas in one-and-a-half containers and, with around 35 people, is the largest team at the competition. Swissloop Tunneling has won Not-a-Boring


Competition awards three times: the innovation award in 2021 and 2023 for the liners, and the champion award in 2024. Like TUM Boring, it has yet to decide whether to enter the 2026 competition. In the meantime, Swissloop Tunneling is developing


and testing the third iteration of its machine, Groundhog Gamma. From the 2021 competition with Groundhog Alpha


in Las Vegas, where the ground was rocky, the team developed Groundhog Beta for the 2023 and 2024 competitions in the more clayey ground at Bastrop. Head of design and communications, Yannick Huber,


says the team replaced a cone crusher with a scraping mechanism and added a soil conditioning foam. They also completely changed the liner system


from Groundhog Alpha, which used a pumped, two-component polymer mix. Wanting a more environmentally-sustainable option, the team chose a thermoplast which is pneumatically pumped in as granules. “It’s heated up and basically printed into the correct


shape like a 3D printer would do,” said Huber. Swissloop Tunneling has now developed Groundhog


Gamma, which has significantly increased reliability and efficiency. A larger number of sensors provide more information on temperature, speed and flow, and the team has also improved the erosion, lining and propulsion systems. “We can measure more exactly where our machine


is; we’ve improved the lining system to make it more reliable; and changed the soil conditioning system because last time we had too much foam. “We’ve also improved the geometry inside the


machine to make the material flow better but also to house more sensors,” said Huber. The electronics have also been changed, from printed


circuit boards (PCBs) of Swissloop Tunneling’s own design to off-the-shelf components in 2024. “When we tested our PCBs in Zurich, we faced an


entirely different situation from Texas, where it was so hot that sometimes the PCBs overheated or broke down,” said Huber. While the PCBs were placed throughout the machine,


the new PLC solution sits in a control cabinet outside it. “It’s much better to work with the software and for


access to the controls, it means the engineers don’t have to take the machine apart if we have to reflash the boards,” said Huber. He describes the propulsion module as “like a snail”,


allowing the machine to dig continuously. It effectively works like a gripper TBM, holding onto the extruded liner tunnel wall and pulling the machine forward. “Our propulsion module is made from two identical


and connected components with 16 hydraulic pistons in total. One of two is always active; one is extending and the other is being reset,” said Huber. “Instead of having to stop each time you’ve dug a


short distance to put your tubing elements on the wall, our liner allows us to dig continuously. While we’re digging, we’re also printing the tunnel wall.” The limiting factor at the moment is that the


thermoplast must cool down sufficiently before the machine can progress. “We heat the material to a high temperature, then get


it back down to something more like room temperature so the tunnel wall hardens and we can advance,” said Huber. Despite that, the liner is such a game-changer that


Swissloop Tunneling is considering securing a patent for it. Huber said the system could be adapted for larger projects and the team hopes to apply it to a tunnel of 1m diameter or more in the future. “In its current form, the system could be used for


small urban tunnels for water, electrics or drainage,” said Huber. The technology is one thing but, as with TUM Boring,


educating and enthusing young engineers is a major part of Swissloop Tunneling’s work. “Swissloop Tunneling is about tunnelling but it’s also


about education: preparing students to be the next generation of engineers and enabling them to apply what they learn in lectures in a practical manner,” said Huber.


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