TBM is short for Tunnel Bored Machines, which are widely used for the large diameter tunneling, like the subway constructions, trans river projects and etc. In a TMB project, during tunneling, a great amount of slurry will be generated, and such slurry should be well treated before discharge. Here the treated mostly means the separating of solids and water, which is also called dewatering.

In TBM slurry, comparing with slurries from oil and gas industry or HDD projects, there are much fewer chemicals or other contaminative components, so normally choosing out the sands and returning water back to system are the main aims. GN Solids Control has different options for TBM projects:

Solution : For TBM slurry treatment, first step by a desanding unit and second step a dewatering unit with big bowl centrifuge.
This configuration has been widely used in different sites in South Asia, including:

1. GNMS-1000D desanding unit. It is a compact unit with a double deck shaker. Lower deck of shaker uses coarse screens for first step separation, playing a role as a shale shaker, while the upper deck of shaker is the drying shaker for solids discharge from the desanding cones on top as the 2nd step separation. Clean slurry will go through the desanding cones’ outlet and falls to next container.

2. Decanter centrifuge with big bowl: if the slurry after GNMS-1000D is not clean enough, there should be a decanter centrifuge as the 3rd step separation. A decanter centrifuge with high speed could remove particles from 2 microns to 5 microns.

3. GNDW-2000 dewateirng unit. If there are extra particles inside the slurry before entering the centrifuge and those particles are requested to be separated out, a dewatering unit should be invited. It can automatically prepare polymer and dosing into the slurry, then the extra fine particles could be flocculated into larger ones for centrifuge.

GN has big bowl centrifuges of 18 inch, 22 inch and 30 inch available for such project. Welcome to contact GN directly for more information.