The first tunnel across the Yellow River opens in 2.5 minutes

The Yellow River Tunnel was completed in Jinan, east China's Shandong Province, Jan. 23, 2018. This is China's largest combined rail shield tunnel under construction diameter. In Luokou section of Jinan, the riverbed of the Yellow River is 5 meters above the ground of the southern urban area, and the maximum flood level is 11.62 meters above the riverbed, making it a "suspended river" with huge amount of water. Moreover, the geology is fragile, with a lot of clay, high hardness rocks and ultra-high soil and water pressure, so the difficulty of digging a tunnel can be easily predicted.

Jinan Yellow River Tunnel is located on the central axis of Jinan city, connecting Jiluo Road in the south of the main urban area, and connecting the pilot zone for the transformation of new and old kinetic energy in the north.

The shield section of the tunnel is 2,519 meters long, which is designed to be built by double-pipe and double-deck public rail. The upper part is a two-way six-lane highway, which can cross the Yellow River in 4 minutes at the fastest, while the lower part is a rail transit system, which can cross the Yellow River in 2 and a half minutes at the fastest, which can save nearly 1 hour's driving time compared with the bypass of Jinan Yellow River Bridge.

From September 2019, "Yellow River" and "Taishan", two super-large diameter mud-water balance shield tunneling machines jointly built by China Railway 14th Bureau Group and Jinan Urban Construction Group under China Railway Construction Corporation, started tunneling successively. Each shield machine has a total weight of 4,000 tons, and the excavated diameter of the cutter head is 15.76 meters, equivalent to the height of a five-story building.

It is reported that the whole tunnel has more than 20,000 joints, the average error of the station is only 2 mm.

Jinan Yellow River Tunnel will be completed and open to traffic in October this year.