Tunnel boring in an urban area can cause disturbances to nearby structures. EnTech’s team overcame the challenge by using more than 2,500 sensors recording ground movement in the area including railroads, buildings, manholes, utilities and detecting any out of range movement caused by the Tunnel Boring Machine or other construction activities.

The Northeast Boundary Tunnel (NEBT) is a 27,000 ft. long, 23 ft. diameter, 50 – 160 ft. deep, reinforced concrete combined sewer tunnel designed to increase the capacity of the existing sewer system in Washington, DC. The tunnel will mitigate sewer flooding and improve the water quality of the Anacostia River.

EnTech is proud to be part of this breakthrough and we are grateful for all of our partners who collaborated with us and made this happen.

“To ensure the data acquisition system is running properly 24/7, to keep up with the TBM while mining 26,700 linear ft., and to coordinate between different parties while TBM is mining through main infrastructures such as WMATA, AMTRAK, CSX, and to run QA/QC on the data to prevent any false alarm, were the main challenges of the project.”