Development of Effective Segment Erection System for Shield Machine

Automatic segment assembly technology for use with the shield construction method has, as a result of the recent increase in the diameters of shield tunnels, become increasingly important as a way to improve safety and cut labor requirements at shield construction sites, and the development process has now passed from the research and development to the practical application stage. And there is now a greater demand than ever before for the function of the automatic assembly apparatus to reduce assembly time and provide fully automatic operation. For this reason, an assembly control method using information about contact between the segments has been developed along with an assembly algorithm that creates, on a computer, optimum assembly target data for several pieces to be assembled last based on assembly performance information of each segment. This report is an outline of the newly developed system.