On August 14, at the tunneling site of the Laoshan Tunnel on the newly built Guizhou Huangtong–Guangxi Baise Railway (hereinafter referred to as the Huang-Bai Railway), the first intelligent tunnel boring equipment on the entire line—an intelligent double-folding-arm rock drilling jumbo—was put into use. Its tunneling efficiency is more than double that of traditional methods, opening up "acceleration" for the construction of the Huang-Bai Railway.

The Laoshan Tunnel, located in Leye County, Baise City, has a total length of 9,121 meters. The geology around the tunnel is complex and variable, and risks such as rockbursts and water inflow are prone to occur during construction.

As a single-track railway tunnel, the working area inside the tunnel is small, leaving no room for large equipment to operate, which also brings considerable difficulty to construction. At present, the area of a single working face in the Laoshan Tunnel is about 73 square meters, and in each excavation cycle an average of 150 blast holes must be drilled on the working face to meet the requirements of blasting excavation. Traditional manual drilling takes 4.5 hours to complete, whereas the intelligent double-folding-arm rock drilling jumbo, controlled by three operators, needs only 2 hours to complete the task of drilling 150 blast holes.

The photo shows operators remotely controlling the mechanical arm of the rock drilling jumbo to carry out drilling operations.

According to reports, the intelligent double-folding-arm rock drilling jumbo is currently an advanced excavation device in China's railway construction. It is not only flexible and easy to control, but can also, through electronic control technology, use functions such as remote monitoring programs, GPS positioning, drilling depth detection, and water pump flow and pressure monitoring to effectively observe blasting hole conditions, further improving blasting quality and ensuring tunnel construction safety. In addition, it generates little dust and low noise during operation, better safeguarding the health of construction personnel.

The Huang-Bai Railway has a total length of about 315 kilometers and a designed speed of 160 kilometers per hour. It is a landmark project of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor. The Guangxi section is 138.773 kilometers long, with 33 new tunnels and 33 new bridges, and a bridge-tunnel ratio as high as 90.6%, the highest among railways in Guangxi. To ensure the construction quality of the Huang-Bai Railway and improve construction efficiency, the construction units—Huang-Bai Railway Co., Ltd. and Yungui Railway Guangxi Company—will subsequently guide all participating units to promote the use of intelligent railway construction equipment such as intelligent digital lining trolleys, intelligent curing trolleys, and 3D laser cross-section scanners, so as to better cope with complex and variable geological conditions, continuously optimize construction processes, reduce process transitions, and lower construction risks.

The photo shows construction personnel operating a tunnel sidewall roughening machine for roughening work.

The construction period of the Huang-Bai Railway is five years. At present, all early-start work sites in the Guangxi section of the Huang-Bai Railway have commenced construction. Tunnel works are advancing comprehensively, and cumulative excavation of the main tunnel has exceeded 1,200 meters. Once the project is completed, it will further improve the regional railway network layout and become a convenient corridor from northern Guizhou to the Beibu Gulf region of Guangxi. It is of great significance for accelerating the construction of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor and promoting coordinated regional economic and social development.