On July 6, the "CREC Jiangxin" 13.65-meter large-diameter shield machine safely and accurately arrived at the receiving steel sleeve, the first large-diameter shield tunnel in the central city of Guangzhou, Pazhou Station of Pazhou Branch Line of Intercity in the Pearl River Delta, was constructed by CREC Consortium, China Railway Southern Investment Group Co, Ltd. Leading Management and China Railway Tunnel Group Co, Ltd. So far, the whole Pazhou branch line has been completed on schedule.
The tunnel is 4,366 meters long and is constructed by a large-diameter slurry balance shield machine with 13.65 meters. The project is located in the central urban area of Guangzhou. After launching, the shield machine has experienced the challenges of crossing the 852-meter-wide Xinzhou Channel and the 100-meter-wide Huangpu Chung, as well as many structures such as subway tunnels, expressways, long-distance houses, underground pipelines, bridges and tunnels, and core business districts. It has encountered complex geological problems such as long-distance granite, argillaceous sandstone, multiple unconformable contact zones, and soft and hard uneven composite strata, which cause the shield cutter to be easily damaged and the cutter head to form mud cakes and the construction risk is high.
The Pazhou Branch Line is an important passageway for Guangguan-Shenzhen Intercity Railway to enter the core area of Guangzhou, with a total length of 17.6 kilometers and two bidding sections. The first bidding section constructed by CREC is 8.585 kilometers long, of which the tunnel is 8.224 kilometers.
