ACROT - TBM Risk Control and Operation Assessment

The application of digitization to civil engineering has given us ACROT, TBM Risk Control and Operation Assessment. Through smart work management, we are connecting tunnel excavation directly to the digital world to ensure reduced costs, time and damage to third parties.

ACROT is a service for construction sites involving the use of TBMs, usually in urban or high-risk environments, such as subways, water mains, drains and railway lines.

ACROT is an advanced digital service specially designed for tunnel excavation in urban environments and aimed at reducing the potential risks of damage to third parties and to the machine itself, derived from the entire tunnel excavation process using a TBM.

The digital environment created allows access to all the data generated before, during and after the excavation, treated with advanced analytics, through an interactive web platform and adapted to the client's needs.

It is therefore a completely digital solution, which offers construction companies and administrations a TBM monitoring system through the application of advanced analytics, from an online work environment, with permanent connection between ACROT team members, operators on site and TBMs. The location of team members in different time zones allows a 24h workflow to be maintained from anywhere in the world.

By collecting TBM operation data through hundreds of sensors, the operation can be parameterized and controlled, detecting anomalies or deviations in the parameters that pose a potential risk to the machine or to third parties.

The analysis of this data and the automation of decision-making, through calculation algorithms and logic algorithms, greatly reduces the probability of risk during mechanized tunneling.

By reducing the probability of risk, damage to third parties and damage to the machine itself can be greatly minimized. This limitation in the probability of risk translates into a significant reduction of unforeseen events during the work, leading to a clear reduction in costs and in operating time.

ACROT has played an active role in managing risk while excavating tunnels as iconic as the high-speed train tunnel under the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Line 3 of the Guadalajara metro in Mexico, and the Leste line of the Fortaleza metro in Brazil.

Benefits

By controlling risk we improve productivity, reduce project costs and even avoid catastrophic situations that are difficult to quantify.

Data capture, data processing and the configuration of calculation algorithms based on the know-how of our team, allows us to apply prescriptive analytics in real time, which greatly reduces risks to third parties and to the machine itself. Access to information in a single structured digital environment facilitates decision-making in a virtually automatic and clearly effective way.

Features

The innovation of the system applied by ACROT in tunnels located in urban environments and executed with TBMs, consists in the application of a work methodology specialized in risk analysis in the development of tunnels, managing all the information related to the tunnel, from the analysis of the construction project, through the TBM operation data to the pathology zoning of the finished tunnel.

This is achieved on the one hand by a highly specialized underground works team and, on the other hand, by a powerful digitization of the system using machine learning and advanced analytics.

Applications and uses

It is currently being used during tunnel excavation, but its digital architecture allows it to be applied in the operation or maintenance phase. It is an expanding product with great possibilities in the immediate future.

Distinguishing features

• Fusion between analog and digital thinking.

• Ability to apply prescriptive analytics.

• Digitization of tunnels from the design phase to the operation phase.

• Machine learning and data mining.

• Fully online control system, which provides 24-hour service to any TBM anywhere in the world.

• Web platform EXCAVA wholly owned by SENER for the analysis and storage of TBM data (2+ million data per TBM per hour).

• Interactive ACROTDigital platform offering TMB georeferencing with integrated data, exclusive information on all key project and excavation parameters and 24-hour technical support to assist TBM/client/user teams in a personalized way.

• The modules in the ACROTDigital platform group all the relevant information and analysis tools into one application, transforming the TBM into future tech: connected, smart, efficient.