On October 19, "Jincheng No. 1", a home-grown super-large-diameter slurry balance shield machine with a diameter of 13.8 meters, rolled off the production line in Changsha. The machine will be used to excavate the Jingu Haihe Tunnel of the Tianjin-Weifang High-speed Railway. This will facilitate the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed rail auxiliary channel and coastal channel in China's "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network.

The shield machine is about 120 meters long and weighs about 3,200 tons. It is currently Tianjin's largest-diameter slurry balance shield machine with the longest blind heading distance. Its cutterhead coating design is inspired by the "Ruyi Jingu Bang (a powerful staff wielded by the Monkey King)" in the traditional Chinese mythological tale "Journey to the West" as the "Jingu" in the Ruyi Jingu Bang and the Jingu Haihe Tunnel shares the same pronunciation in Chinese.

This super-sized machine was jointly built by the China Railway 14th Bureau Group Corporation Limited and the China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Corporation.

A man dressed as the "Monkey King" stands beside the shield machine.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government. www.enghunan.gov.cn.

Translator: Kuang Zhenzhen

Chinese source: hunantoday