As “Islander,” a slurry shield machine with super-large operating diameter developed by China Railway Engineering Equipment Group Co., Ltd. under the umbrella of China Railway Hi-Tech Industry Co., Ltd., began tunneling under a waterway in Poland on March 5, the highway tunneling project officially entered the shield construction stage.

The “Islander” balanced slurry shield machine has a cutter diameter of 13.46 meters, a total length of 105 meters and a total weight of over 2,700 tons. The design team of China Railway Engineering Equipment Group benchmarked the European standards, innovated the structure of the blade, and equipped the machine with continuous wear detection device for the blade tool and zero mud discharge system for mud pipe extension. The shield body system adopts a special articulated structure, which has strong turning and deflection correction ability, and its cutter head capable of reverse operations further improves the safety, adaptability and environmental friendliness of the equipment. The engineering team completed the installation, debugging and acceptance of the shield machine in three extremely cold winter months when the days are shorter and nights longer in Poland. (By Sun Kaidi)