Bennett Associates

Engineering Design Consultants

RSS feed

Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator

 
   

The expertise of Bennett Associates, the South Yorkshire based mechanical and structural design consulting engineers, has again been used by Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd, this time on the Heathrow Express contract currently under construction for the BAA.

The brief was a fixed price contract to design and supply a novel segment manipulator which could be attached to, and operated from, a Case 888 excavator.

Bob Wood, a Senior Design Engineer at Bennett Associates, worked closely with the Heathrow Express team and various local manufacturers to design and produce the apparatus in a very short time scale.

The method of operation is simple and commences when the excavator driver unhitches the conventional digger bucket, using cab controls, and then hitches the segment manipulator to the excavator by the same method.

The hydraulic power for the segment manipulator is taken directly from the excavator. Using the conventional controls of the excavator the driver attaches the segment to the manipulator and positions it to within 100mm of its final location.

Final accurate placing of the segment is then carried out by the Ring Builders using the hydraulic control located on the manipulator.

 

 
   
Previous PagePage 1Page 2Next Page

 
Tunnelling - Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator
Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator

Tunnelling - Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator
Tunnelling - Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator
Tunnelling - Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator
     
Tunnelling - Novel Tunnel Segment Manipulator
     
Move mouse over images to enlarge

Printable PDF
Pdf