Launched in October, the TBM, known as Nancy, is one of five machines being used on the Sydney Metro project, constructing 31 km of tunnels between Marrickville and Chatswood.
In combination with another TBM, Nancy – named in honour of transport pioneer Nancy Bird Walton OBE – is tunnelling 8.1 km from Marrickville to new metro stations at Waterloo, Central, Pitt Street, Martin Place and on to Barangaroo, where both machines will be removed from the ground.
Nancy is specially designed to cut through sandstone and shale and will tunnel an average of 120 m a week.
Another two of the TBMs will dig 6.2 km from Chatswood to the edge of Sydney Harbour, while the fifth machine has been specially designed to deliver the twin tunnels under Sydney Harbour.
The TBMs are about 150 m long and specially designed for Sydney’s geology to cut through hard sandstone and will excavate an estimated 5.9 million t of rock.
It is the first time that five TBMs have worked on an Australian transport infrastructure project.
For more information visit the Sydney Metro website.
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Images supplied by Sydney Metro