Shinagawa's shaftless shield: the Shinagawa project is 8km from the dense, metropolitan centre of Tokyo, Japan and must contend with the difficulties inherent in tunnelling under the world's largest megacity. Yasuhito Yokoi, Tsutomu Kimura, Atsushi Kagawa, Satoru Kawauchi and Keizo Miki, all of contractor Obayashi Corporation, present this article on the first use of a surface-launched TBM in Japan

Developed in Japan, the URUP (Ultra Rapid Under Pass) method is being hailed as an epoch-making shield tunnelling technique, enabling rapid construction of underpasses, even in urban centres with high [...]