The Warwick Boring Team has been working on innovative tunnelling technology to make future transport greener, cheaper and faster. Out of nearly 400 applicants, the team was shortlisted into one of 12 teams to see how fast their tunnelling solution can dig tunnels. Teams will build their own prototype and demonstrate its ability to construct a 30m-long, 500mm-wide tunnel.
Currently, tunnel boring machine excavation is perceived by some as being excessively slow, costing from US$100m to US$1bn/mile. The Warwick Boring Team will compete against other top universities, including MIT, TUM and ETH Zurich, as well as other tunnelling industry professionals.
The team is supported by several industry experts and university academics. Having started the competition in September 2020, it advanced through several selection stages, including submitting detailed technical reports. Team members are STEM students from various fields including mechanical, electrical, systems engineering, physics and mathematics.
Dr Alan Bloodworth, a lecturer in civil engineering and one of the academic advisors to the team, said: “This is indeed a fantastic achievement by the team. They have shown great confidence, self-belief and a ‘can do’ attitude, as well as careful attention to high quality engineering and technical solutions. It is a diverse team that has come together with a shared objective to design and build better for a sustainable future, and that is a great showcase of what young engineers are capable of.”
The event will take place in summer 2021 near Los Angeles, US.
