en.Wedoany.com Reported - The "Steel Backbone" full-face hard rock shaft boring machine, developed by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), has been put into operation at the West Anshan Iron Mine project of Ansteel in Liaoning. The entire machine weighs 500 tons, has an excavation diameter of 8.1 meters, and possesses the capability for kilometer-level full-face hard rock shaft boring, making it the world's first equipment of its kind. According to the South China Morning Post, the equipment has completed practical verification, drawing attention from the global mining and deep earth engineering sectors.
The "Steel Backbone" was developed by CRCC Heavy Industry Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of CRCC, and is a core achievement of China's National Key R&D Program project "Key Technologies and Equipment for Kilometer-depth Shaft Hard Rock Full-Face Boring Machine". The project commenced R&D in 2021, and the team successively broke through three key core technologies: excavation, muck removal, and support. On April 16, 2025, the equipment was officially launched at CRCC's Changsha Second Industrial Park.
Deep hard rock shaft boring has long faced technical challenges. For stable hard rock excavation, the equipment employs a conical cutterhead structure capable of automatic deviation correction. During the R&D process, the team encountered a situation in the ventilation shaft project of the Yanjiang Expressway in Panzhihua, Sichuan, where a sudden increase in rock hardness to 140 MPa caused abnormal wear on the cutterhead. Through dedicated efforts, the team adjusted the disc cutter inclination angle to 15° and innovatively changed the cutterhead structure from a V-shape to a W-shape, effectively solving the problem of uneven cutterhead wear during hard rock boring.
For muck removal, inspired by the principle of the dragon-bone water pump, the team independently developed an intelligent vertical muck removal system with an efficiency of 120 cubic meters per hour. For support, the team collaborated with multiple research institutions to tackle the challenge, adopting a "formwork + cast-in-place concrete" solution. They installed the first-of-its-kind automatic hydraulic formwork device behind the shield body of the equipment, achieving automated support operations.
CRCC Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. is a subsidiary of China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), headquartered in Changsha, Hunan Province. It is mainly engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of high-end equipment such as tunnel construction machinery and track systems. The predecessor of this equipment is the first-generation shaft boring machine "Shouchuang" (Pioneer). The team conducted a comprehensive upgrade and redesign based on this foundation. Ding Zhangfei, the chief designer of the equipment, explained the aforementioned technical details to the Science and Technology Daily.
According to the South China Morning Post, the equipment has been put into operation at the West Anshan Iron Mine project of Ansteel in Liaoning. According to Interesting Engineering, compared to traditional shaft construction methods, this technology enables more direct underground resource extraction and reduces large-scale surface excavation. Chinese energy experts suggest using such technologies to build deep earth infrastructure networks. This equipment fills an international gap in full-face boring equipment for shaft depths exceeding 1000 meters.
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