A fleet of Liebherr duty cycle crawler cranes is currently being employed in the cut-and-cover excavation of a Hong Kong rail tunnel.
The cranes are being used for Leighton-Gammon Joint Venture’s contracts on the West Kowloon Terminus (WKT) at the Express Rail Link’s Hong Kong section
In a city as densely populated as Hong Kong, 11 hectares might seem like a significant slice of real estate. For the terminus of a mainline railway station, however, 11 hectares is not much space at all. To overcome this problem, designers have had to think vertically. Their solution has been to move the terminus – and indeed the railway line itself – underground.
This project necessitates the open-cut excavation of approximately 1,700,000m3 of earth at a depth of 33m. Construction then requires the use of 600,000m3 of concrete and 150,000 tonnes of reinforcement steel.
The Liebherr HS 855 duty cycle crawler cranes have been fitted with material-handling grabs to transfer excavated soil to the surface. With its 74m maximum main boom, the HS 855 offers a lifting capacity of up to 120 tonnes. As contractors will be excavating approximately 5,000m3 of earth every day, the cranes will have to remove 800 truckloads of material during the course of the project.
The main tunnels will measure 26km in total, and a range of techniques are being utilised in their construction. Drill-and-blast, cut-and-cover, and tunnel-boring machines are all been used in accordance with the type of ground in question.
The XRL’s Hong Kong station is being constructed by the MTR Corporation. Leighton-Gammon Joint Ventures has been contracted to build WKT’s Station North and Southern Approach Tunnel.
