Patent attributes
A Tunnel Digging Machine (TDM) is a shield machine to excavate tunnels with almost any desired cross sections including rectangular, square, sub/semi-rectangular, sub/semi-square, horseshoe/U-shaped, elliptical, circular, sub/semi circular and such sections through a variety of soil and rock strata. The TDM can be designed to dig through anything from hard rock to sand with large range of width and height configurations. The TDMs can limit the disturbance to the surrounding ground and produce a tunnel lining. The TDMs may be used as an alternative to the current conventional Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) or continuous miners. The major advantage of the TDMs over the TBMs will be their higher speed (higher advancement rate), fully sealable face, flexibility in the desired cross-section and reduced construction costs due to the mentioned higher speed, efficiency and optimized cross-section.
