Recently, the super-large-diameter slurry shield machine "Pingshan East No. 3" (CREC 1327), jointly built by China Railway Engineering Equipment Group and China Railway No. 3 Engineering Group, successfully rolled off the production line. The equipment will be deployed in the construction of the shield-driven section in the western zone of the Pingshan East Tunnel under Section SSSG-4 of the newly built Shenzhen-Shanwei Railway project.

It is reported that the shield-driven section in the western zone of the Pingshan East Tunnel under Section SSSG-4 of the newly built Shenzhen-Shanwei Railway project has a total length of 3,851 meters and a maximum burial depth of 62.5 meters, and is a single-tube double-track tunnel. The strata crossed by the western shield-driven section are dominated by slightly weathered granite, with the compressive strength of some local granite reaching as high as 120 MPa.

The "Pingshan East No. 3" rolled off the line this time has an excavation diameter of 14.31 meters, an overall length of approximately 122 meters, and a total weight of more than 3,000 tons. During shield construction, it will face the challenge of long-distance tunneling through large-section rock strata. In addition, the shield machine needs to pass beneath the Pearl River East Coast Garden and the Pingshan River, and pass alongside the Xiamen-Shenzhen Bridge and other risk sources, making construction highly difficult and imposing high requirements on surface settlement control and shield attitude. Relying on extensive design and manufacturing experience and combining the characteristics of the strata and lithology, the R&D team of China Railway Engineering Equipment Group optimized the design of "Pingshan East No. 3," equipping it with advanced detection grouting, shield tail clearance measurement, and other features, thereby ensuring the equipment's adaptability and efficient tunneling in complex strata.

The newly built Shenzhen-Shanwei Railway is an important component of the coastal high-speed corridor among the "eight horizontal and eight vertical" main high-speed rail corridors in the National Medium- and Long-Term Railway Network Plan. It is a key project for improving the rail transit construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Once completed, it will greatly strengthen the connections between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the West Taiwan Strait Economic Zone and the Yangtze River Delta region, and further enhance Shenzhen's role in driving and radiating the economic development of eastern Guangdong. The Shenzhen-Shanwei High-Speed Railway is expected to be completed and opened to traffic in 2027. By then, the travel time from the cooperation zone to downtown Shenzhen will be greatly shortened to 30 minutes, injecting new momentum into the integrated development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.