Güçlü İnşaat Nears Completion of Tunnel Built with Its First Domestic TBM
"The TBM we built for this project was designed entirely by Turkish engineers and manufactured in Kocaeli. By producing the tunnel-boring machine ourselves instead of buying it abroad at twice the price, we saved more than 50%."
— Utkucan ÇELİK — Güçlü Group Board MemberGüçlü İnşaat is approaching the end of the tunnel it is building with the first domestic TBM.
Güçlü Group has completed most of the water-transmission-line project beneath the Bağcılar–Kabataş tram route, Istanbul’s first drinking-water tunnel. Scheduled for completion at the end of 2018, the project is being carried out using a TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine, or “mole”) manufactured with 95% domestic content.
Güçlü Group, known for projects in many countries around the world, including Türkiye, Kazakhstan, the Czech Republic, Iraq, the United States, Libya and Ghana, has achieved another first. The company is carrying out tunnel works with a TBM it manufactured itself—the machine commonly known as a mole—and is nearing completion of the transmission-line project beneath the Bağcılar–Kabataş tram route, at an average depth of 30 metres.
Launched in 2017 under the leadership of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and İSKİ to renew sections of drinking-water and wastewater lines approaching the end of their economic lives, the project includes a transmission line approximately 3,100 metres long and 3 metres in diameter beneath the Bağcılar–Kabataş tram route. As Istanbul’s first drinking-water tunnel, it is being built by hundreds of people working underground day and night to secure the city’s water supply.
Güçlü Group Board Member Utkucan Çelik said: “We have completed more than half of the tunnel project we began in 2017. No one above ground will see the work or be disturbed by it, but hundreds of people will work underground day and night to supply water to Istanbul. The project’s most distinctive feature is that excavation is being carried out with a TBM that is 95% domestically manufactured. Years ago, tunnels were excavated entirely by physical labour. As technology developed, the machines we call TBMs, or moles, came into service. Until now, every TBM used in Türkiye had been brought in from abroad. The TBM we built was designed entirely by Turkish engineers and manufactured at a factory in Kocaeli. By producing the high-tech tunnel-boring machine ourselves instead of buying one from abroad at twice the price, we have saved more than 50%.”