PROJECT | SILVERTOWN


BORING FOR SILVERTOWN


Silvertown road tunnel project features a huge, single TBM – and a U-turn for the machine – to complete the twin tube under the Thames, in London


With only tight space available for construction work at either end of the Silvertown road tunnel, in London, the efforts to launch and re-launch the single Herrenknecht TBM working on the twin tube project was always going to be an interesting technical challenge. Add to that the large size of the solitary machine –


at 11.91m-diameter it is the biggest to have worked in London and the UK. There are larger TBMs that have bored tunnels in the world, but they are not abundant; Silvertown’s TBM, named ‘Jill’, has some ranking in international levels. But it was at a local spot in London, in a ‘peanut-


shaped; shaft on the north shore of the River Thames, that saw the first challenge for the machine: erecting the TBM in the short shaft and employing a pressure ring launch system to get it underway, boring from Silvertown southward to the reception shaft in the


30 | August 2023


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