TBM Cutterhead Locking Cylinders

There is a specific kind of silence that happens inside the cutterhead chamber of a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) when the main drive is shut down. It’s heavy. You are standing in front of a 400-ton steel face that wants nothing more than to rotate due to gravity and...

TBM Thrust Cylinders

You are 500 meters into a drive, the ground conditions have just shifted from clay to abrasive granite, and suddenly the operator reports a pressure drop in Zone B. You check the propulsion system and see it: the trunnion ear on the number 12 cylinder has cracked, or...