Juan Angel Martinez Diaz: Leader Adapted Hovercraft-like Technique for Repositioning TBM

As project director on London’s $1.2-billion Silvertown highway tunnel, Juan Angel Martinez Diaz successfully adopted hovercraft-like skates to rotate the job’s 39-ft-dia tunneling shield to drive both bores of the 0.9-mile crossing, saving critical time on the project’s tight schedule.

Mega Projects - The Thames Tunnel: The World's First Underwater Passage, 17092021

Plagued by floods, fires and gas leaks, horribly overdue and over budget, and resulting in the deaths of seven people, this was the epic battle to build the world's first underwater tunnel. To say that the construction of the Thames Tunnel was a torturous undertaking would be a glorious understatement