Hydraulic and earth engineering – Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying – retrieving,... – Repair – replacement – or improvement
Patent
1996-10-25
1998-05-12
Taylor, Dennis L.
Hydraulic and earth engineering
Subterranean or submarine pipe or cable laying, retrieving,...
Repair, replacement, or improvement
405146, 405154, F16L 100, E03F 306
Patent
active
057496781
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to an arrangement for driving a tunnel or drain pipe along a driving stretch leading from a starting shaft to a target shaft, having a driving head, which has a cylindrical shell and a drilling disk, which can be rotated on the front side about the center axis of the shell and can be driven by a motor, a number of pipe pieces, which can be introduced one after the other through the starting shaft into the driving stretch, the first pipe piece of the pipe pieces rests on the front side against the shell of the driving head, a pressing carriage, which can be supported on an abutment within the starting shaft, and presses the pipe pieces axially in a direction toward the driving head, a cutting chamber, which can be loaded with spoil through openings in the drilling disk, and a transporting pipe for the removal of the spoil to a spoil transporting stretch connected to the transporting pipe on the outlet side, which transporting pipe is equipped with a conveyor worm.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Arrangements of the above type, which operate according to the pipe pressing method, are often used for the creation of micro tunnels and mini tunnels up to approximately 3 m in diameter and lengths of up to approximately 800 m. A driven driving head is thereby pressed through the earth by the pressing carriage with a constant addition of additional pipe pieces. The accumulating spoil has up to now been conveyed to the outside either by conveyor belts, trolleys or by flush conveying. The removal by belts is relatively complicated if one considers that the belts must be continuously extended as the pipe pieces are moved forward. In addition, one must consider the relatively large amount of space required by a conveyor belt system. The removal by trolleys and rails is simple, however, it is rather time consuming since the driving head can only operate when the trolley is in place. Conveying by flushing is usually used in a gravel-granular type ground, however, it is also in the case of hard stone. The carrier liquid or suspension flows thereby with a high speed through the cutting chamber of the driving head and carries forward with approximately 15% of its circulating volume being spoil. The carrier liquid is separated from the spoil through cyclones, filters, etc. above the ground and is again added into the cycle. This method is expensive, requires large amount of space above-ground and is not suited for all types of grounds. For example, in the case of very soft, fine granular, clay-containing grounds, maintaining the pressure against the earth has been proven to be problematic. Therefore so called earth-pressure shields are used, with which it is important that the advance and the removal of the conveyed material are exactly balanced so that neither a lifting of the ground nor a settling of the ground can occur. This condition can, however, only be maintained when the spoil maintains enough friction compared with the discharge worm so that the pressure against the earth is maintained. This applies indeed to stiff-plastic and plastic type grounds, not, however, to grounds with a soft-plastic or liquid consistency, which cannot build up enough friction through the discharge worm.
Starting out from this the invention suggests to improve an arrangement of the above-disclosed type in such a manner that a spoil rupture can be avoided and the earth pressure in front of the driving head can be maintained constant when used with grounds having a soft-plastic or liquid consistency.
To attain this purpose the combination of characteristics disclosed in claim 1 is suggested. Advantageous embodiments and further developments of the invention result from the dependent claims.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The solution of the invention is based on the premise of building up a counterpressure on the outlet side of the transporting pipe connected to the cutting chamber of the driving head, which counterpressure enables, even in the case of a soft-plastic spoil, a first pressure maintenan
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Kainuma, Norio, et al., Entwicklung eines Einpressverfahrens fuer die Verlegung von Starkstromkabeln mit geringen Querschnitten.
Conrad, Eckhard, Funktionsmechnismen und Gestaltungskriterien von Erddruckschilden.
Diehl Arnold
Dose Rolf
Putzmeister-Werk Maschinenfabrik GmbH
Taylor Dennis L.
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