Soft-Ground

NFM Technologies

For about twelve years, NFM Technologies has been designing and constructing tunnel boring machines, principally specializing in large diameter soft ground TBMs. Their most spectacular project at present is the world’s largest TBM in Groene Hart, The Netherlands, with a diameter of 14,87 meters. This tunnel boring machine constructs a tunnel for the extension of the Thalys High Speed Railway Line between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Their own development in the world’s largest TBM was the Benton’Air^® system, a combination of pressurized slurry systems.

NFM also broke a number of world records in the means of rapidity. One of these was broken in the Madrid Metro project when one of the two machines covered an advance rate of 1020 metres in just 31 days, the fastest advancement ever made by an EPB machine. Their current projects include the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in Great Britain and the Guadarrama High Speed Rail Tunnel in Spain, contracts acquired jointly with WIRTH GmbH (Germany).