To meet the challenges of underground civil construction and enhance the skills in tunnelling activities, the Delhi Metro will be sending its engineers abroad for a special training. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has tied up with the Tunnel Training Academy in Kuala lumpur to train its engineers on the latest techniques and skills needed for doing underground tunnelling works using Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM). “The training is aimed at increasing the levels of skills of the DMRC engineers in underground tunnelling as about 53 km of the total length of 143 km of Delhi Metro Phase 3 is being constructed underground and 35 TBMs (Tunnel Boring Machines) are going to be used to achieve this target,” said DMRC Managing Director Mangu Singh.
According to Delhi Metro officials, such intensive tunnelling activity will require specialised engineering skills in different aspects of the operations of the Tunnel boring Machines such as Cutting Wheel Erection, Erection simulators for ring building, Gap filling/grouting, Short creting technology etc, which are an essential part of the TBM operations.
“The Metro engineers will be able to get hands on training in a classroom underground tunnel environment using audiovisual three-dimensional tools to erect tunnelling segments using wireless controls in the Malaysian Academy. In addition they will be able to construct Tunnel Archs using Concreting (Shotcrete) in the training laboratories. The trainees will also be exposed to working TBM models and the use of cutting tools such as Disk Cutter and Cutting Knives which are used to cut through soil and rocks encountered by the TBMs during UG tunnelling ops,” an official said.