DL E&C (375500) announced on the 3rd that it has developed a specialized slip-form construction method for pumped-storage power plants that enables efficient construction of deep vertical tunnels exceeding 100 meters underground. The company has filed a patent application and is pursuing commercialization.
A slip-form is a mold that shapes concrete during pouring.
Conventional methods used hydraulic jacks inside the tunnel to push the slip-form upward. The new technology suspends the slip-form from wires, allowing it to be installed as if floating in mid-air.
By separating worker pathways into upper and lower sections around the slip-form, tasks that previously had to be performed sequentially can now be executed simultaneously. This improves work efficiency and safety while reducing construction time by 20%.
Due to the nature of pumped-storage power generation, which produces electricity by dropping water from an upper dam to a lower dam, vertical tunnels reach heights of several hundred meters. Underground powerhouses for pumped-storage facilities are critical processes that determine overall construction timelines and share similar scale and characteristics with deep underground subway stations.
DL E&C recently completed excavation of a tunnel vertically penetrating Yokmangsan Mountain in Busan using RBM, a cutting-edge excavation equipment for vertical tunnels. The RBM method will also be applied as a core technology at the Yeongdong Pumped-Storage Power Plant currently under construction. DL E&C is the only domestic construction company with RBM construction experience over the past five years, having completed work on GTX-A Seoul Station, the nation's largest underground space.
"Based on our specialized technology for vertical tunnel construction and experience executing special underground space projects including GTX-A Seoul Station, the nation's largest urban underground space, we will be able to secure a competitive advantage in the pumped-storage power market going forward," said Park Sang-shin, CEO of DL E&C.