L&T Lowers TBM Lavi into Bangalore Metro’s Shivajinagar Station

Back in mid-June, workers from Larsen & Toubro quietly lowered pieces of their fourth and final Tunnel Boring Machine – DZ672 nicknamed Lavi – into the Shivajinagar Station for building tunnels on the 21.386 km Line-4 (Reach 6 / Pink Line) of the 73.92 km Bangalore Metro Phase 2 project.

This Ø6.65m slurry machine was manufactured at China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. (CRCHI)’s plant in Changsha, China and passed factory acceptance tests in December 2019. It arrived in Bengaluru city through the Chennai Port in March along with TBM DZ671 (Vindhya).

Per the tunneling plan, TBM Lavi along with TBM Avni, lowered earlier in May, will be deployed exclusively for building the 2.755 km package RT-02’s 2141 meter twin tunnels between Shivaji Nagar – MG Road – National Military School (formerly Vellara Road).

Route of RT-02 from Shivajinagar to National Military School – view Bangalore Metro Phase 2 info & route map
Lavi’s Cutterhead – Photo Copyright: Chetan Chauhan
TBM Lavi (left) with its shields and TBM Avni (right) – Photo Copyright: Chetan Chauhan

Lavi’s Tail Skin (see graphic) was lowered on Tuesday and workers are now preparing to cast the station’s head-wall, next to its diaphragm wall, after which the machines will be pulled ahead.

Larsen & Toubro officials in early June reported delays to me with the delivery of key equipment due to the COVID-19 related lockdown, such as the 6 multi-service vehicles (MSVs) L&T bought to support tunneling.

Per Radhakrishna Reddy – BMRCL’s Director of Projects, with whom S Lalita at The New Indian Express spoke with, excavation can also not begin without CRCHI’s tunneling experts due to warranty conditions.

Giving instructions via video conference is not possible, Reddy said, as engineers need to physically operate the machine for 1 kilometre and check it out as there is a warranty on the machines

For more updates, check out the Bangalore section of The Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG

written by

Global traveler who prefers mass rapid transit

6 Responses to "L&T Lowers TBM Lavi into Bangalore Metro’s Shivajinagar Station"

  1. K S RANGACHAR says:

    I am L&Tite Retired.
    We are very much interested and eagar to hv Airport route.

    Reply
    • Ayan Ganguly says:

      Hello sir… Is there anyone whom I can reach for job in Bangalore… I have diploma in civil and I have done csti training too… Please suggest someone if there’s anyone whom I can contact

      Reply
  2. Pankaj says:

    Even L&T is buying TBM from China can we not make them in India

    Reply
  3. REVA STEEL says:

    All type of scrap materials

    Reply
  4. Sheik jamal says:

    Iam looking job

    Reply

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