The ups, and ups, for
vertical conveying
Vertical conveying has increasingly become a main
stay of the mucking out sector, Pete Kennedy
reports for NATJ
The Grand Paris Express is among the most
remarkable underground rail projects the world has
seen. The undertaking includes four new rail lines
circling Paris and the expansion of two existing lines
of the 120-year-old Paris Métro. The total length:
205km. The cost of their development: a whopping
€26bn.
“There are upwards of 50 tunneling sites in the
project; some are quite small and some are quite
large,” said Russ Turner, Technical Support Manager
at Komatsu Mining Group, which is working on a
large portion of the project’s tunneling.
Above: An HAC There has been an incredible run of large-scale
on the Grand tunneling projects in Europe. Komatsu is also
Paris Express.
involved in the bidding stage of a high-speed rail
Right: Russ Turner,
Technical Support line between Turin, Italy, and Lyon, France. The total
Manager at project will include the longest rail tunnel in the
Komatsu Mining world, at 57.5km.
Group. Turner, whose experience dates back to the
Channel Tunnel project, believes we will not soon
see so many high-profile projects being completed
in such a short timeframe. While the projects’
scope might not be matched in the near future, a
trend toward removing large amounts of material
quickly has been established. Such standards will be
expected in the future, even on less formidable sites
in all parts of the world – including North America.
Turner provides a closer look at higher mucking
out volumes and other trends that will play out
across geographic borders and project scales.
‘Meters matter’
The boring speed of TBMs has increased, which
means more material must be removed in the same
timeframe. As Turner stated, “Meters matter – or, if
you’re from the U.S., yards matter.”
A TBM can produce 300 to 1500 tonnes of muck
per hour on typical metro systems. A mucking out
system must be able to handle those amounts, even
if material composition complicates matters.
Komatsu is utilizing high-angle conveyors (HACs) to
remove material in Paris and another current jobsite,
the Thames Tideway Tunnel project in London. The
vertical conveyors are being given a closer look on
all types of tunneling projects. “It’s definitely become
a go-to technology,” Turner said.
“Extracting in cities has always been in many
12 North American Tunneling Journal
cases from shafts or boxes, which are not very big,”
Turner said. “The vertical conveying has always been
a bottleneck. Now that we are extracting at higher
rates, even more capacity is needed.”
Enter the HAC. “The HAC goes back to 1983,”
Turner said. “It was generally designed for products
like coal, grain, aggregates – fairly predictable
materials.”
A HAC was first used on a tunnel project in 1993,
he said. “Since then, it has been made more robust
and with improved geometry so it performs in
confined spaces and enables better flow, particularly
with a large variance of material types,” Turner said.
Belts have been specifically designed for muck
transport. They feature more durability, improved
material retention and are increasingly resistant to
the sometimes very abrasive and sharp muck.
“The HAC has quite a small footprint, say 2m x 2m
on the shaft or box wall, and that’s a big advantage in
a 12m shaft,” Turner said. “Imagine a larger machine
or even a skip system lifting the muck out of the
same shaft that supplies segments, grout, rail and
conveyor equipment – everything the TBM needs to
grow the tunnel length.”
Yet HACs must keep pace with the progress they
help provide. This is accomplished in two key ways.
First, HACs allow materials to be easily scraped
from the flat belt, saving the time, effort and cost of
cleaning bins, pockets or buckets.
If volume is extremely heavy, as it is in a portion of
the Thames Tideway project, the material handling
system can be made larger to incorporate a second
HAC. Even with this addition, the footprint remains
small enough to devote adequate shaft space to
achieve TBM support.

Get the muck out of here
Details can be the killer. That includes belt cleaning
and reducing spillage. “Problems in these areas
cause the deployment of valuable personnel,” Turner
said.
One remedy is to involve conveyor suppliers
earlier in the process. “Whilst still usually the last
major purchase on a project, the trend now is to
involve the conveyor suppliers early in the project
discussions,” Turner said.
For example, the first contact regarding conveying
on the Paris railway lots was made well before the
first earth was moved. “Transporting muck to its final
destination is another detail that is now explored
early in the planning,” Turner said. “Once again, the
movement toward greater capacity comes into play.”
The discussions include material haul-out. The
projects in London and Paris are near rivers, so
barges were the choice for removal. Of course, not
all projects have such river access. Turner cautions
that while trucks might be front-of-mind in these
situations, they are not always the best option if
there is a high quantity of waste.
“That could cause traffic nightmares,” he said.
“Using that many vehicles could simply stop the job.”
Turner faces different variables on the Turin-Lyon
tunneling project, which is in the early stages of the
tendering process, and therefore modified the haul-
out approach.
“Two tunnel conveyers 18km long could be
employed as one option, which puts it in the league
of some of the longest done,” he said. The amount
of muck and possible complication of its removal
could lead to the extension of a railroad line for
removal of the excavated material.
What may help that project is its relatively remote
location, with plenty of convenient storage space for
the muck.
Material separation matters, too
The disposal requires muck to be separated by
material type. “We don’t just create a big pile of
muck,” Turner said. “There needs to be separate piles
or bins.”
That separation is now becoming a much more
intelligent procedure. It can include placement of a
computer chip onto the conveyor during loading.
This allows personnel to track the type of material
and its movement. “It’s like throwing a mobile phone
on the conveyor,” Turner said. “People will go to
great lengths to separate materials.”
The chip informs stacking personnel when to
divert a different type of muck to a new pile. “If you
have the wrong type of muck in the wrong place, it’s
a very big deal,” he said.
The computer chip is a new twist on an old
process. “In the past, they used to throw colored golf
balls on the muck,” Turner said. “When the guy on
the surface saw the specific color, he would use the
diversion shoot.”
Muck can provide value
In Paris, the muck needs to remain on-site for two to
three days for testing. “This is something I see more
often,” Turner said.
There is little concern that the muck is hazardous,
THE UPS, AND UPS, FOR VERTICAL CONVEYING
but overseers require an understanding of its
composition so it can be disposed of properly.
“Some materials can be more predictable – like
clays, sand and limestone,” he said.
In some cases, detailed knowledge of the
composition allows the muck to be reused. For
example, the muck from the Lyon-Turin tunnel
contains a great deal of usable product. “Some of the
material was valuable and could be re-crushed to
make concrete,” Turner said.
The cost-savings and environmental advantage
associated with reusing the materials is considerable.
“The volume is substantial,” Turner said. “That is a Tunnel Muck Stock
57km tunnel.” Area Thames
Tideway Central,
Contractors have batch plants located on that
all the Material
jobsite. “They make their own concrete,” he said. “If was transported
they can provide their own aggregate, they don’t vertically by a HAC
have to buy it. It also saves transport and disposal
costs.”
Additives now can save a lot later
The muck can be modified during conveying to
make transport easier and to access the material
when it’s most convenient and cost-effective.
When working in very wet conditions, belts with
inclines help remove water. Additives also can be
added early in the process.
“We try to drain as much as possible,” Turner said.
“Also the TBM sometimes uses additives to modify
the extraction and conveying properties of the
material. That sometimes makes it sticky but less
watery. You have to simply rise to the challenge.”
If the material has a particular composition –
for example, if it’s known to require chemical
intervention – it can be conveyed “as is” and a
dosing mixture can be added at a special transfer
point.
“The dosing material is added before the muck
goes to the bins,” Turner said. “It’s not extremely
sophisticated but it is practical. The dosing agents
are basically metered in.”
This simple step can be an enormous time- and
cost-saver. “If this isn’t done, and you have to
bring the material to spec, then you have to get
an excavator and stir it in like a cake mix,” he said.
“It’s a lot more expensive, particularly in time and
effort.”
North American Tunneling Journal 13
 Operators are getting smarter
Different operators can have different approaches.
Yet there is one commonality: Tunnel operations are
getting smarter thanks to experience, innovation and
ingenuity.
A combination of improved technology and smart
operators comprise what Turner describes as “I.T. –
Intelligent Tunneling.”
“More logic is put into the way they’re operating the
machine and collecting data at all levels, with the main
objective of safety and productivity by design,” Turner
said.
Operators have targets to meet. This requires
efficient TBM operation and proper mucking out
systems to keep the project on track.
Operators and personnel at other parts of the
chain – conveying, stacking, diverting – must also be
engaged. Improper stacking, or failing to introduce
additives, can be extremely costly. Failing to monitor
and adjust conveyors can lead to slowdowns or even
require the allocation of additional personnel.
Financial pressures will continue for conveyor
manufacturers
Additional manufacturers are entering the conveying
markets and will apply more price pressures by doing
so, Turner believes.
“Conveying equipment designed to the ‘norms’
will have a longer life than the usual 12 to 24-month
operational use on a typical project,” Turner said.
Therefore, customers continue to request – and
receive – buybacks on TBMs and related equipment,
such as conveyors.
“Buybacks are definitely a trend,” Turner said.
“A question that’s always asked in a tender or
contractual meeting is, ‘Will you give us a buyback
offer for the equipment after the job is complete?’”
This is particularly common on the bigger jobsites,
where some contractors are motivated not only
by price, but by a lack of storage space. In some
cases, they simply don’t plan to reuse the conveying
equipment.
“However, some contractors will retain the
equipment if they see a future use – in the same
way we must consider future use if we exercise the
buyback,” Turner said.
The buybacks are just another trend, as are the
larger quantities and all that goes with them.
“That’s just the reality of doing business,” Turner
said.

Clean and quiet conveyors
A project at an abandoned gold mine in
Lead, South Dakota, is offering a glimpse
into the versatility of conveying – with a
touch of sustainability as well.
The Robbins Company is providing
the conveyors, which utilize extensive
efforts to make the mucking out process
clean and quiet in a residential area. The
project also showcases how continuous
conveyors can be implemented in other
types of underground applications
beyond TBM tunnels.
Plans call for the contractor, Kiewit, to
excavate caverns for the Long-Baseline
Neutrino Facility (LBNF) to be operated by
the Department of Energy’s Fermilab. The
abandoned mine will become Fermilab’s
new neutrino detection facility in
partnership with the Deep Underground
Neutrino Experiment (DUNE).
This graphic depicts the path excavated rock
will take from the 4850 Level to the Open Cut in
Lead, South Dakota. Image: Fermilab
Two caverns will be excavated by drill/
blast and roadheader about 1.5km below
the surface.
During the excavation, Kiewit will
transport mucked out rock by cable
hoist up the 1.5km deep shaft to a
surface crusher. The reuse of the shaft
is a nod toward sustainability, as is
the utilization of refurbished mining
equipment for the transport and
crushing of the rock.
The project becomes even more
interesting as the muck is conveyed to an
idle open pit mine. The system includes a
Robbins tunnel conveyor, which utilizes
1600 feet of the original tramway tunnel,
and an overland conveyor, which runs
another 1800 feet to the existing open pit.
“The setup includes the longest ever
overland conveyor Robbins has provided,”
the company stated. Yet there is more to
the conveyor than length. It also spans a
main road and is very close to residential
areas and a city park.
Therefore, enclosed trusses and a few
other features have been added to the
conveyors. They include:
• Sound-dampening materials
• Metal and smoke detectors
• Sound-proofed, steel transfer points
• Auto-cleaning dust filters
These efforts will ensure the muck can be
moved to the open pit – but in a manner
so environmentally sensitive that residents
and park-goers will not be disturbed.
Lance Lopez, left, with Kiewit Alberici Joint
Venture and Mike Andrews with Fermi Research
Alliance descend into the Ross Ore Pass on an
open cage. Photo: Matthew Kapust, Sanford
Underground Research Facility
Assembly of the conveyors is set to
begin this summer.
Site preparation began seven years ago,
with the renovation of the main shaft. The
main tasks were:
• Renovating the area at the bottom of
the shaft, where rock will be loaded into
skips
• Strengthening the headframe
• Refurbishing the rock-crushing system
next to the headframe, which was last
used in 2001 as part of a gold mine
Continuing and future projects are:
• Building and installing the conveyor
system
• Rehabbing the existing tramway tunnel
• Creating the power infrastructure for
operating the LBNF/DUNE experiment,
which will include 70,000 tons of liquid
argon cooled to minus 184ºC.

14 North American Tunneling Journal