After having fascinated the public for more than six months at the entrance to the Triennale di Milano, the Stefania TBM, one of the six mechanical tunnel boring machines that dug the tunnels of the M4 metropolitan line in Milan, built by the Webuild Group, was back in gear. The gigantic head of the TBM has in fact found a new “home” and reached the “Leonardo da Vinci” National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan tonight, where it will be exhibited as an example of Made in Italy engineering excellence. An exceptional transport, escorted by the municipal police, left on the evening of October 30th and lasted about two hours, involving a convoy of two vehicles, for the head and for the saddle.
The “mechanical mole”, or rather its milling head, which alone has a diameter of 6.7 meters and weighs 58 tons, was the great protagonist of the exhibition “Building the future. Infrastructure and benefits for people and territories” organized by Webuild at the Triennale last March. Within this exhibition, visited by thousands of people, particular space was dedicated to the contribution of TBMs in the construction of the Milan metro. Stefania represents the symbol of all the TBMs currently working for the Webuild Group in foreign and Italian construction sites. Throughout its history, over 200 TBMs have worked for the Group, operating non-stop, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In 50 years, they have thus completed 1,500 kilometers of tunnels, the equivalent of a single large underground tunnel which connects Milan to Copenhagen.
The destination of the Museum was chosen precisely by virtue of its strong link with the world of technological and industrial development, told through stories of people, inventions, research, discoveries and business realities that have contributed to transforming society in the last two centuries , with particular reference to Italy. The TBM therefore becomes part of its collections as a symbol of progress in the transport sector and innovation which is transforming the concept of mobility in Italian cities.
After transport, the gigantic head of the TBM will be positioned in the gardens next to the Railway Pavilion on a special concrete base on which the steel structure that supports it has been placed and from where it will be visible to all visitors to the Museum. TBMs are large mechanical moles which, however, do not limit themselves to digging underground: at the same time they fix the lining of the tunnels, allowing the complete mechanization of the excavation and construction of the tunnels. These are complex machines of impressive dimensions, with the largest being almost 120 meters in length and 19 meters in diameter. The milling head alone, like the one exhibited in Milan, can weigh between 400 and 500 tons. To function, each mechanical cutter requires a team of approximately 80 people who generally work in eight-hour shifts, to guarantee the best efficiency and ensure speed of progress.
The overall route of the M4 will connect the city of Milan from east to west, crossing the historic center and joining the two terminus, Linate and San Cristoforo, for a total length of 15 kilometres. The new line will allow this distance to be covered in just 30 minutes of travel, through 21 stations. This metro will help make the city one of the most accessible in Europe, with a connection that takes just over 12 minutes from the airport to San Babila station. Among the projects in which large TBMs are currently operating in the world are the Snowy 2.0 hydroelectric project in Australia, where Webuild is using one of the most technologically advanced TBMs today, line 16 of the Grand Paris Express in France and the Naples- Bari in Italy.
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