Simulation of maintenance strategies in mechanized tunneling

Mechanized tunneling is one of the most common methods used for underground constructions for infrastructure systems. Since a tunnel boring machine (TBM) represents a non-redundant single machine system, the efficiency of maintenance work highly impacts the overall project performance. The wear and tear of cutting tools is a critical, but mostly unknown process. To plan the maintenance work of cutting tools efficiently, it is necessary to know the current tool conditions and adapt the planned maintenance strategies to the actual status accordingly. In this paper, an existing theoretical empiric surrogate model to describe cutting tool conditions will be used and implemented as a software component within a process simulation tool that manages TBM steering parameters. Further, different maintenance setups for TBM cutting tools are presented and evaluated. To prove the capability of the presented approach, a case study will show the effects that improved maintenance work can have on project performance.