Tunneling is one of the oldest forms of engineering found in today\u2019s world. From ancient times man has been creating structures called tunnels in intact rock and soil in order to
\nachieve a certain purpose. Despite its ancient origins , tunneling in the modern era has taken a drastic step and is slowly advancing into an engineering marvel. Hypersonics are defined as speeds which are far greater than the speed of sound (approximately 5 times). The ratio of speed of a given wave to that of sound is denoted by the Mach number, which in the case of hypersonic waves is around 5.
\nSuch a phenomenon is studied actively in aerospace fields, where hypersonic travel is the subject of interest. However , in the past few years a few companies have utilized this technology to drill holes and tunnels in the Earth\u2019s subsurface with a large amount of success.<\/p>\n
One of these companies Hypersciences Inc. , a Texas based startup has succeeded in utilising hypersonics for tunneling at extremely high speeds. Elon Musk\u2019s \u201cThe Boring Company\u201d is also moving in this direction. Hypersciences , founded by Mark Russel , who utilised his family\u2019s experience in mining and
\ndrilling, along with his own in Aeronautics and aerospace technology to create several patents on hypersonic drilling technology.
\nHow their Tunneling machine(HyperBreaker) works is as follows-
\nThe machine consists of a power source capable of generating a small explosion within the machine which launches a cement projectile at hypersonic speeds into the rock mass, along with the conventional parts of a TBM(Tunnel Boring Machine) i.e the drill ,drill rods, drill
\nbits and machine body.<\/p>\n
Two distinct phenomena responsible for rock failure take place here-
\nThe first is when the cement projectile interacts with the rock mass. Due to its high kinetic energy , the projectile explodes at the surface creating a small crater in the rock.
\nThe second is the impact the shock wave generated has on the rock mass. This shock wave is what causes a sonic boom to take place. Shock waves are nothing but pressure waves,
\nwhich in this case undergo repeated compression with each other due to the object which is traveling hypersonic speeds. Now, this shock wave starts expanding as the projectile
\ntravels. After the projectile creates the crater , this shock wave interacts with the rock
\nsurface thereby fracturing it even further and causing already pre-existing cracks to grow
\nmuch larger. This rock mass is now extremely fragile and can be drilled through easily using
\nconventional Tunnel Boring technology in order to enlarge the excavation.
\nThis new technology has been proven to not only create a 10x increase in advance through
\nrock , but also cost 2 times less compared to conventional machines.
\nWith such technologies, creating hyperloop tunnels within the earth will no longer seem a
\nlong shot,but a reality.<\/p>\n
-Karthik Menon<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tunneling is one of the oldest forms of engineering found in today\u2019s world. From ancient times man has been creating structures called tunnels in intact rock and soil in order to achieve a certain purpose. Despite its ancient origins , tunneling in the modern era has taken a drastic step and is slowly advancing into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech","category-yantrika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":590,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582\/revisions\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nitk.acm.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}