TBM DiGs

Turkey has a great potential of Tunnelling and in the near future it is planned to spend 35 Billion USA dollars in Tunnelling in Turkey. It is expected that TBM Tunnelling will have a big share within these activities. The geology of Turkey is very complex including North and East Anatolian faults, tectonic activities and shear zones, rock and soil mixed and interfaced grounds, spalling and bursting rocks, squeezing and swelling grounds, blocky and highly fractured rocks and grounds under high in situ stress and water pressure and gassy rock formations.

Improvement and optimisation of TBM’s performance in those difficult ground conditions require good scientific understanding, innovative technology development and good engineering practice, that involve tunnelling and geotechnical engineers, designers and contractors, TBM manufacturers and material suppliers, and researchers. TBM DiGs (Tunnel Boring Machines in Difficult Grounds) is planned to be an international conference series to provide a specialised technological forum discussing and exchanging knowledge related to TBM works in difficult grounds.

The conference plans to cover a wide range including characterisation of difficult grounds, field observations and case studies, physical and laboratory tests, numerical modelling and techniques, treatments of difficult grounds, TBM design and installation, tunnel support design, monitoring and risk management. The Organisers would like to welcome researchers and practitioners involved with TBM tunnelling to the TBM DiGs 2016 conference to share, to cooperate, and to progress.