Vertical conveyor accelerated penetration

At the beginning of December 2019, a unique vertical conveyor developed by the design department of UMM LLC was put into operation in a round pit at site No. 17.

The design, assembly and installation of the conveyor took about nine months. Its use made it possible to simplify the process of soil delivery by automating it, and also to significantly speed up the excavation of the left-hand distillation tunnel.

– The conditions of our site are quite specific. The tunnel conveyor that we usually use to ship mined rock was not enough this time. At the same time, lifting a bucket with a crane takes a lot of time,” says Sergei Strelnikov, chief engineer of UMM LLC. – To solve the problem, we had two ways. Rent a vertical conveyor, which would be very expensive. Or connect our design workshop to the development of your own machine.

Part of the conveyor on the surface

As a result, UMM LLC specialists, headed by the head of the design department Alexey Frantsuzov, created their own unique conveyor. The vertical part of the conveyor is 45 meters, it is designed to ship 600 tons of rock per day.

Initially, it was planned to work alternately with two tunnel boring machines. But by the time of launch, the Herrenknecht S-771 Elena, which was constructing the right section, had practically covered the path from site No. 17 to the dead ends behind the Savelovskaya station. The use of the conveyor was abandoned due to inexpediency. SMU-12, which was driving this machine, handled the buckets.

Now the vertical conveyor is paired with a tunnel servicing TBM Herrenknecht S-772 named “Inna”. The shield started last fall. The rock first passes through the shield conveyor, then moves along the belt to the transverse one, from there it is dumped into the vertical bunker and rises along it. Here, through a spill pick-up, the rock is transported to a dump conveyor.

View of the conveyor belt from the pit

“Due to the continuous supply of rock to the belt and its delivery to the top, the speed of penetration has increased significantly,” said Valery Borodulin, head of section No. 2 of Tunnel-2001 LLC. – Now we are in the operating metro area, six meters above us is the Rizhskaya station of the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line. Therefore there is a speed limit. We go 6-8 rings per day. Next, we plan to accelerate the speed to 14 rings and minimize the distance to the Elena TBM, which has gone ahead.

During the operation of the new conveyor, its design is slightly modified, as some shortcomings are discovered in the field. They are not significant. For example, water sources were added to wet the belt, the belt cleaner nozzles were redesigned, and additional aprons were added.

The installation of the vertical conveyor was carried out by UMM specialists in December last year

After working on a round pit, the conveyor can be used on other objects. Its height is easily adjusted by the length of the tape.