On the morning of November 5, as the cutterhead of the "Hero" shield machine slowly rotated, the "Hero" shield machine for the Tianxiang Avenue Tunnel of the Changjiu High-Speed Railway, constructed by the China Railway 14th Bureau Group, was successfully launched in Nanchang High-Tech Zone. This is currently the largest-diameter shield machine successfully launched for a Chinese railway, marking the start of shield tunneling on Jiangxi Province's first large-diameter shield tunnel.

Li Hongjun, member of the Standing Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Nanchang Municipal Party Committee; Jiang Xinhong, Vice Mayor of Nanchang; Yang Xianguo, Secretary-General of the Nanchang Municipal Government; Guo Jianguang, General Manager of Changjiu Company, and Zhang Handong, Chief Engineer; Li Guang, Deputy General Manager of the East China Regional Headquarters of China Railway Construction; Zhou Changjin, General Manager of the Group Company, and Chen Ming, Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission; as well as more than 150 employee representatives from units including the East China Regional Headquarters, the Second Company, the Large Shield Company, and the Fangqiao Company, attended the launch ceremony.

Speaking on behalf of the construction unit, Zhou Changjin said that they will always forge ahead courageously and overcome difficulties and risks, always be innovative and strive for excellence, and comprehensively carry out technological innovations such as BIM, smart construction sites, shield big-data visualization, and monitoring and early warning, so as to ensure safe, rapid, high-quality, and efficient construction of shield equipment, strive to build a benchmark project for China's high-speed railway large-diameter shield tunnels, continue to write new era glory for the red-soil holy land, and contribute the strength and demonstrate the responsibility of a central state-owned enterprise to the comprehensive building of "Six Jiangxi."

The Changjiu High-Speed Railway is located in northern Jiangxi Province. The line starts in Chaisang District, Jiujiang City in the north and ends in Nanchang County in the south, with a total length of 137.7 kilometers and a designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour. It is an important part of the Beijing-Hong Kong corridor among the "Eight Vertical and Eight Horizontal" main high-speed railway corridors in the National Medium- and Long-Term Railway Network Plan, and is also a key section for building Jiangxi Province's north-south 350 km/h high-speed railway corridor.

As one of the controlling projects of the Changjiu High-Speed Railway, the Tianxiang Avenue Tunnel has high construction standards and great construction difficulty. With a total length of about 6.4 kilometers, it is one of the controlling projects of the entire Changjiu High-Speed Railway line and is a single-tube double-track tunnel, of which the shield section is 4.4 kilometers long. At the same time, the tunnel's internal structure innovatively adopts an "integral fully precast box culvert," the first implementation of its kind in a domestic 350 km/h high-speed railway tunnel, and requires long-distance crossing of water-rich complex strata and 78 risk sources.

To overcome the project construction challenges, the China Railway 14th Bureau Group gave full play to its years of shield construction experience in crossing rivers and seas and tailor-made the "Hero" shield machine, with an excavation diameter of 14.8 meters. Targeted designs were made in aspects such as cutterhead structure and pressure and corrosion resistance, and multiple innovative technologies such as a cutterhead hydraulic wear detection device were equipped, making it one of the most intelligent and advanced shield machines currently used in domestic high-speed railway tunnel construction.

In addition, the tunneling of the "Hero" shield machine will rely on digital shield technology, integrate artificial intelligence algorithms, and adopt an autonomous tunneling mode to realize the shield's functions of "manned attendance, unmanned driving, and automatic deviation correction." At the same time, the shield machine's box culvert lifting equipment has been upgraded and optimized to achieve automatic grabbing and one-key leveling of box culvert components, which will greatly save subsequent simultaneous construction work, reduce safety hazards, and improve project quality and efficiency.

It is reported that after the Changjiu High-Speed Railway is completed and opened to traffic, it will be of great significance for Jiangxi Province to build a Changjiu integrated comprehensive transportation system, further connect with and integrate into the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, help implement the Yangtze River Economic Belt development strategy, and promote high-quality economic and social development along the line.