First SQ5 pneumatic impact hammer from Amberg Technologies AG starts up successfully in India

Amberg Technologies AG installed the first SQ5 impact hammer, developed jointly with HIL 3D-US, in a tunnel boring machine (TBM) at the Indian contractor Larsen & Toubro (L&T) in the Rishikesh-Karnaprayag Railway Line project in Uttarakhand in May 2023. The impact hammer serves as the source of seismic waves for the TSP 603-Impact system and has been running continuously since then. As soon as the TBM comes to a standstill after each 1.7 m drive stroke, the local geology team wakes up the measurement components receiver-transceiver and the impact hammer wirelessly via a tablet PC. With this, the impact source couples laterally against the rock face. Now, the hammer exerts 5-7 impacts at this position, the recorded signals of which are later stacked to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. This data acquisition lasts 2-3 minutes until the hammer returns to its rest position independently. Once the signal data from 20 consecutive impact positions are recorded and stored, appropriate data processing and analysis can begin, providing a geological forecast of the next up to 100 m ahead of the face after a few hours. Now the geology team has about three days until the TBM has driven up 75 m and the next measurement campaign can begin.  The entire cycle of such a campaign takes an average of 6 days, if the TBM is driving meanwhile.

So far, the contractor L&T is on schedule and the TBM has already advanced 2.5 km into the rock. Along the way, two fault zones have already been identified ahead.

Source: Amberg Technologies AG