The first of the seven TELT tunnel boring machines that will excavate the Mont Cenis base tunnel is named Viviana. Its mission is to excavate the 9 km tunnel between Saint-Martin-La-Porte and La Praz, in France. In line with the underground work tradition, the TBM was baptised with a female name: Viviana, in honour of the wife of Mario Virano, TELT’s first general director who passed away in June 2023. The ceremony was attended by TELT management, workers, the Italian French group of companies, the Italian Vice-President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, Matteo Salvini, and the French Minister of Transport, Philippe Tabarot, who unveiled the TBM’s name and symbolically signed the TBM cutterhead.

Viviana, designed, built and assembled in the Herrenknecht factory in Schwanau (Baden-Württemberg) (Baden-Württemberg), is the result of an international collaboration involving different European companies, a dozen of which are Italian and French.

With a length of 180 metres, a diameter of 10.4 metres and a weight of 2,300 tonnes, this machine is designed and equipped to meet the challenges of this great work.  The cutterhead is equipped with 61 cutters that break the rock as they advance through the mountain.  After its passage, Viviana directly lays the concrete segments (8 segments) to guarantee the stability of the tunnel where the trains between Italy and France will travel.  It is a real travelling factory, with 10 trailers, which transports the rocks to the surface via an integrated conveyor belt system, optimising the excavation process and the reuse of the extracted materials.  With its power of 8,100 kW, Viviana will advance at a speed of 300 to 450 metres per month.

The construction site is active 24 hours a day: around 15 professionals on board the tunnel boring machine ensure its operation and supervise the operations necessary for the construction of the tunnel.