On December 18th, 2024, the FAT ceremony for a mining TBM to be exported to Africa was held in Changsha, China. The machine has been manufactured by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation Limited (CRCHI) and will be applied during a tunnel construction project on the Zambia Chambishi southeast ore body. It is the first time a Chinese-made mining TBM exported to Africa, say CRCHI.
The excavation diameter of the TBM is 5.63m, with the length of about 130m and weight of about 800 tons. The minimum horizontal turning radius of the TBM is 50m and it can adapt to a maximum gradient of ±15°.
This project is the first digitization mine project in Africa. The tunnel is 9.7km long with construction challenges including long-distance hard rock sections, a fault fracture zone, small-radius turning curves, long-distance retraction, cage transportation, and high geothermal condition etc.
The CRCHI R&D team developed an innovative modular design, including small-radius turning, track-free backup, as well as an auxiliary gripping system, immediate support systems and advance geological forecasting systems, which will improve the TBM’s adaptability to poor geological conditions. The TBM is also equipped with a customizedrefrigeration system, on-line tool monitoring system, with integrated office & rest facilities designed to improve theoperator’s comfort.
This project has a total investment of US$830M, with an annual ore mining and processing capacity of 3.3M tons and a concentrate production of 60,000 tons copper. The construction of this tunnel will significantly increase the transportation capacity of the copper mine.
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