During the CNY break, I went to the Pahang-Selangor Raw Water Transfer Tunnel and Kelau Dam construction sites with my final year project supervisor and my course mates.
The main purpose of the construction of tunnel and dam is to provide selangor and kuala lumpur with water, from pahang. Due to the drastic economic and social development in the 2 regions, it is expected that KL and Selangor will be facing the water shortage issue very soon. Hence this project is carried out to prepare the solution for this future issue.
It was a very exciting but tiring trip. Dr Ashraf provided us with great accommodation and meals. We stayed in a home stay with aircon, water heater, coffee sets, wifi, and Astro. For that 5 days, I spent my free time with Astro, as I am the only girl and I stayed in one unit, plus I forget to bring my laptop =.=
The worst case during the trip was during the sampling in the middle of tunnel. The tunnel we visited is at 400m++ underground (the greatest depth of the tunnel is around 1250m below the existing ground level). Due to the depth and the condition of lacking oxygen (left around 17% oxygen instead of 21%), we felt hot and can hardly breath during the sampling work. One of our member even experienced difficulties in breathing and dehydrated as he sweat too much.
I guess there is no need to describe the trip in jargon. The photos below will tell more.
We met the geologists from UK and Thailand
This is how a NATM tunnel look like.
The yellow thingy above is air ventilation system.
It brings cold air into the end of the tunnel, where construction is carry out.
Water from the ground will still seeps through the wall.
This machine is call the drill jumbo
It is drilling holes on the ground surface
the holes are needed to put in explosive to blast the rock
this is the operation room of the drill jumbo
it looks so much fun
like you are controlling a 'transformer'
yet it is not easy, everything run by skillful operators
Rock bolts
The supports for the tunnel face
Water flow out during the drilling work by drill jumbo
this holes at located along tunnel at the tunnel wall
it is drilled to place the rock bolt as supports later on
explosive that wrapped with plastic to avoid water seeping in
workers push the explosive into the holes accordingly
The fresh blasted face.
The geologist have to do the geology mapping right after the blasting.
During our visit, the freshly excavated surface still experiencing
rock burst and some minor failure
Scaling work
where the machine will trim the blasted surface to an ideal shape
This is a form used to produce nice and smooth tunnel face
Concrete will be sprayed into the space between the excavated ground and this form
to get an smooth surface.
this is how the final work look like
This is at the Kelau Dam site
The geologists and engineer from Japan explained to us in detail
about the dam construction and also grouting work
the rock sample
pink colour shows the concrete they grouted in
Doing check hole for the grouting work
Rig need to be inclined at 10 degree
Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM)
they name it KAMILA (means 'perfect' in Arabic)
Flood in tunnel
too much water ingress
right : conveyor belt (bring out rock pieces after excavation)
left : pipe for water, electric and so on
Doing insitu water testing
It was a really exciting experience walking in the tunnel
Inner structure of the TBM
Still doing sampling
There wasn't any Malaysian skilled workers inside the tunnel. I guess the Malaysian are too choosy in work? The working condition is not pleasant at all of course, but having none specialist in tunneling works, and depend only on foreign experts is nothing to be proud of, my dear Malaysian. I hope our country will have more concerns in training some experts in this field soon.
Finally, thanks to everyone who works on the sites. The working condition is really awful. Without these people, the project will not be able to complete. Thanks!
And peeps! Don't waste water, save our Earth =]
Nice day~!
