From: wylie@sscvx1.ssc.gov (Russ Wylie)
Subject: SSC Tunnelling Begins
Organization: Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory
Distribution: All
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 23:43:35 GMT

Organization: External Affairs, Super Collider Lab






IMMEDIATE RELEASE
	DALLAS, TX. -- (Tuesday, December 29, 1992) --  The "Inchworm," an 
advanced technology tunnel boring machine (TBM), was unveiled today at the 
bottom of a deep and cavernous shaft beneath the Texas prairie south of 
here where it will soon begin the longest single tunnelling project in the 
world today.
	Within the next few days, the 69-ft.-long, 250-ton behemoth's 14-ft. 
diameter cutter head will be pushed against the shale rock that it will 
grind and cut as it bores the first segment of a tunnel that will 
eventually stretch around a racetrack-shaped course 54 miles in 
circumference.
	The tunnel, ranging in depth from 50 ft. to 250 ft. beneath the earth's 
surface, will house the main components of a remarkable machine for 
scientific discovery in the 21st Century, the U.S. Department of Energy's 
Superconducting Super Collider.  When completed in late 1999, the Super 
Collider will be the largest instrument ever constructed for research in 
basic science.
	"The start of tunnelling for the Super Collider is the most recent 
manifestation of the material progress we have made in constructing this 
machine for fundamental scientific discovery," said Dr. Roy F. Schwitters, 
director of the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory.  "A worldwide 
team of 2,000 scientists and a nationwide partnership of thousands of 
business and industrial employees are now at work in universities, 
laboratories, and factories turning plans into the equipment that is 
coming together here to form the Super Collider."
	The Super Collider is a giant, powerful accelerator that will propel two 
beams of particles -- basic building blocks of the material world -- in 
opposite directions before crossing them inside huge detectors that will 
record and track the debris of the resulting particle collisions.  Results 
will be studied by scientists in a vast international enterprise that 
promises to substantially advance humankind's understanding of the 
universe, how it began, what it is made of, and how it works.  The 
discoveries that the Super Collider will make possible may be expected to 
pace the advance of basic science in the next century, Dr. Schwitters 
said.  
	For the present, though, the design and construction of the Super 
Collider is helping to advance technology for American industry.  "The TBM 
that is in place today is one example of how this project is helping to 
advance American technology and competitiveness in many and diverse 
fields," he said.  "Its ability to self propel its 69-ft.-long train as it 
continuously tunnels ahead represents a significant advance in tunnel 
boring technology, an advance that has been made by an American company, 
the Robbins Company, of Kent, Washington.  Other innovations in technology 
are being pulled ahead by the Super Collider project in such fields as 
high-speed computing and switching, materials, underground construction, 
particle beam therapies to treat cancers, cryogenics, and 
superconductivity -- a phenomenon that allows electricity to circulate 
through its conductor without resistive loss."
	The Robbins TBM will be joined next month by two more machines that are 
being assembled at other sites along the main 54-mile accelerator ring.  
By month's end, all three machines will be boring segments of the tunnel.  
Eventually, five TBMs will be involved in the tunnelling activity.  
Completion of the tunnel is planned for 1996, by which time installation 
of accelerator components will be under way.
	Concurrently with the main tunnel, four other tunnels are being bored or 
excavated for associated smaller interconnected accelerators that will 
prepare the particle beam for injection into the collider.  The first of 
the four, a linear (straight line) accelerator, has been started and will 
be completed by next spring.  Construction will begin next month on the 
second of the four, a low-energy booster.  Bids will be taken during the 
first quarter of next year for the third, a medium-energy booster, and in 
1994 for the fourth, the high-energy booster.  The housings for all four 
of the injector accelerators will be completed by 1996.  The injector and 
main accelerators will be assembled in nearly 70 miles of underground 
tunnels that will be either bored or excavated using cut-and-cover 
techniques.
	To date, five contracts covering about 60 percent of the main collider 
tunnel have been awarded.  The five firms and the amount of their awards 
as as follows:
	A 2.7-mile length was awarded in January of this year to the joint 
venture of Obayashi/Dillingham of Pleasanton, CA and San Francisco, CA, in 
the amount of $17,827,000; a second 2.7-mile segment was awarded to the 
joint venture team of Traylor Bros., Inc., and Frontier-Kemper 
Constructors, Inc., of Pleasanton, CA and Evansville, IN, in April for 
$14,362,500; an 8.3-mile segment was awarded to the joint venture of 
Gilbert Texas Construction Corp., of Omaha, NE, and Ft. Worth, TX, and the 
J.F. Shea Co., Inc., of Walnut, CA, in June for $23,891, 000; the fourth 
award was also to the Gilbert-Shea joint venture in September for an 
8.5-mile segment in the amount of $27,074,000.  The fifth segment was 
awarded to the joint venture Traylor Bros./Frontier-Kemper in the amount 
of $24.2 million to construct  an 8.1-mile segment.  The five awards total 
approximately $107,400,000.
	The Superconducting Super Collider is being built for the Department of 
Energy by the Universities Research Association, Inc., a not-for-profit 
consortium of 79 leading research universities in the United States and 
Canada.  The scientific organization is also responsible for developing 
the Super Collider's scientific program and operating the facility on 
behalf of the world scientific community.
(12/29/92)


Russ Wylie, Director, External Affairs,
Super Collider Laboratory
Dallas, TX 75237
214 708 1045; FAX 214 708 0000