On the morning of June 3, at the construction site of the Ruyang Water Supply Project in the Qianping Irrigation District, located in Ruyang County, Luoyang City, the "Shuitou No. 1" shield tunneling machine broke through the ground, achieving full breakthrough of the No. 1 tunnel, an important node project of the project. At this point, all three tunnel sections of the project—No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3—have been completed, marking the project's completion of a major controlling construction node task.

As a key project in the implementation of the national and Henan Province "14th Five-Year Plan," the Qianping Reservoir Irrigation District Project consists of the North Main Pipeline, the South Main Canal, and their subordinate canal systems. The irrigation area covers 52.15 mu (approximately 3,477 hectares), with an annual water supply of 162.57 million cubic meters.

Chen Yunfei, project manager of Henan Qianping Irrigation District Engineering Co., Ltd., the contracting unit, introduced that the Ruyang Water Supply Project in the Qianping Irrigation District, which started construction in June 2022, has a total investment of 1.12 billion yuan. Starting from the Qianping Reservoir regulation and storage pond, it mainly involves the construction of a 15.5-kilometer water conveyance pipeline and three tunnel sections with a total length of 7.2 kilometers (namely No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 tunnels), among other works, to meet the water demand of Ruyang urban area and the towns along the route.

"The No. 1 tunnel, with a length of 5,176 meters, has a circular cross-section and an excavation diameter of 3.86 meters. It passes through eight geological interfaces including mudstone, sandstone, shale, and limestone, with complex working strata of uneven hardness and softness," Chen Yunfei said.

Since the "Shuitou No. 1" shield tunneling machine was launched on April 18 last year, the project department has continuously optimized the construction plan and innovatively applied technologies such as ultra-small-diameter composite cutterhead rock-breaking technology, real-time detection technology for cutter wear under pressure, rocker-arm segment assembly technology, multi-stage dynamic balance sealing and bearing-ring gear separation technology, effectively addressing unfavorable factors such as long tunneling distance, complex geological conditions, and limited working space, and driving the project construction to proceed smoothly according to the scheduled nodes.

Moreover, in implementing "mechanization to replace manpower and automation to reduce personnel," the construction command headquarters customized a smart tunnel construction monitoring platform, a personnel positioning system, and an intelligent safety monitoring system, building an information-based management ecosystem that greatly improves the mechanization, intelligence, and informatization level of tunnel construction, and also accumulates referable and replicable experience for similar engineering operations.

Thanks to numerous innovative applications, the "Shuitou No. 1" shield tunneling machine completed a one-way tunneling of 5,176 meters over 410 days, achieving full breakthrough of the No. 1 tunnel. "The average daily tunneling was 12.7 meters, with a maximum single-day tunneling of 32.4 meters, and more than 200 cutters of various types were replaced during construction," Chen Yunfei said, citing the relevant data with great familiarity when discussing the construction process.

Chen Yunfei acknowledged that the three tunnel sections are the "throat projects" of the Ruyang Water Supply Project. On the premise of fully investigating construction conditions in the early stage, the construction party adopted targeted construction schemes: shield tunneling for the No. 1 tunnel, two-way blasting for the No. 2 tunnel, and pipe jacking for the No. 3 tunnel.

Take the No. 3 tunnel, which achieved full breakthrough in February this year. The tunnel has a total length of 1,535 meters and a designed finished diameter of 2.2 meters. The strata it passes through are mainly andesite and quartz sandstone, with an extremely complex geological structure. To this end, the construction unit innovated the pipe jacking method, adopting a slurry balance pipe jacking machine for one-way jacking, continuously improving the rock-breaking efficiency of the pipe jacking equipment, and ultimately achieving breakthrough according to the scheduled time node, while also filling a gap in Henan Province's ultra-long-distance hard rock pipe jacking technology.

Even earlier, the No. 2 tunnel, which achieved full breakthrough in October last year, also saw construction progress advancing at full speed. At present, processes such as tunnel consolidation grouting and secondary lining have largely been completed.

"As of now, the Ruyang Water Supply Project in the Qianping Irrigation District has completed 85% of the project investment and will be completed in the first half of next year," said a relevant person in charge of the construction command headquarters of the Ruyang Water Supply Project in the Qianping Irrigation District. They stated that they will continue to optimize work processes, scientifically coordinate various elements, maintain drive and determination, boost morale and accelerate progress, and strive to build a premium and benchmark project, ensuring the project is completed, put into use, and effective as early as possible.