DRAGON

Development of Resource-efficient and Advanced underGrOund techNologies

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

Increased global competition, economic requirements in order to act budget-conscious as well as current (and future) environmental regulations have caused/will cause the need for new underground construction technologies in order to guarantee resource-efficiency within the tunnelling processes. The before mentioned situation also calls for a paradigm shift from only landfilling with excavation material in a direction to re-use the excavated material by nearly 100% as valuable new raw material in other industrial processes and sectors. Therefore the overall goal of DRAGON is to develop new work flows and new techniques in order to guarantee a) a fast detection of useable materials; b) an immediate separation of high value materials already within the underground construction site and c) the recycling of that material on the backup system of the tunnel boring machines. Based on that research results a number of different prototypes will be developed and tested throughout the project duration. Another important impact of DRAGON is that the LCA (life cycle analysis) is going to provide scientific evidence that the re-use of excavated tunnelling material will result in more resource-efficient and more closed-loop related systems (even in industry-related economy) in Europe. A complex project such as DRAGON can only be addressed by joint and concerted actions of outstanding experts: DRAGON`s scientific partner MUL belongs to Europe`s leading tunnelling experts; the 4 participating SME partners are highly specialised companies which are active in environmental niche markets; HK as market leader of mechanized tunnelling systems guarantees the market power and brings in the corresponding market knowledge whereas PORR as end user partner will mostly benefit from the newly developed equipment and the way to save costs either by commercializing valuable excavation materials or by re-using excavation material as its own raw material.

Introduzione (Teaser)

An EU project team is developing a new system which enables the detection, processing and utilisation of valuable mineral resources directly on a tunnel boring machine (TBM). The work has led to several new technologies for on-site operations, including detectors, conveyors and other equipment.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

In the next few years, European underground construction industry will excavate approx. 800 million tonnes of materials from tunnels and similar projects. Currently most of this material is deposited. Direct use and recycling on-site or in other industry branches (situated nearby the excavation site) would offer great economic and environmental benefits.

The EU-funded 'Development of resource-efficient and advanced underground technologies' (http://www.dragonproject.eu (DRAGON)) project aims to achieve resource-efficiency in tunnelling and other underground construction processes by turning the excavation material into a valuable resource for other processes and sectors such as the cement, steel, ceramic or glass industries.

It is being implemented by developing a prototype system for the automated online analysis, separation and recycling of excavated materials in underground construction sites. The entire chain from characterisation to classification and processing of the excavated material will be conducted completely underground.

The process steps in detail: Excavation process: Excavation of material at the heading face by the TBM`s cutting wheel, including characterisation of rock properties using a disc cutter load monitoring system. Main material flow: Discharge of the excavated material via the TBM's main belt conveyor. Sampling: Splitting the bypass material flow using a hammer sampler. Elemental analysis: Material preparation by crusher and bypass belt conveyor, followed by high-precision microwave moisture measurement and online x-ray elemental analysis. Grain size analysis: Photo-optical analysis for parallel determination of grain size distribution. Sorting: In-stream sorting of the excavated material based on the online classification results.

This approach would substitute a large amount of primary mineral resources and substantially reduce environmental problems and CO2 emissions involved in landfilling and transport.

Another important objective is to assess the resource efficiency of different usage scenarios on a quantifiable basis and thus provide a sound basis for decision making by national/international authorities.

The project duration is 3 years. That means the project is going to be finished in September 2015.