On 31st July 2016, Our team from CORE Institute of Technology set out on a site visit to Kuthiran Hills, where a tunnel of about 1km in length is being constructed . It was a one hour journey to the site and we were able to reach the site at 9:30 am.Our guide Mr. Chandran, Site engineer wasn't available at that time. So we took our time to explore the site and saw various machinery and equipment which were enormous and doing some heavy work.
We were lucky enough to witness a machinery known as boomer which only reached the site that same day. It was a huge machine and it was used to create holes in the rocks. It was capable of making 900 holes per hour. The drill bit used with machine was 3 meter in length and 4.5 cm in diameter.
At 10 am site engineer Mr Chandran arrived at the site and gave us brief description of the various machinery and equipment being used there .
We arrived at the site during the morning shift. The morning shift consisted of debris removal from the explosion that took place the previous day.After the brief explanation about the machinery Mr. Chandran provided as safety equipment to wear before entering the tunnel.
then he guided us into the tunnel and explained the explosion and debris removal process. Each explosion cycle consisted of drilling, gelatin stick insertion , detonation and finally debris removal . The drilling process is done by the boomer and it's 4.5 cm dia drill bit. Gelatin stick of the same diameter as the boomer drill bit is inserted to the drilled holes and it is blasted by using a detonator far from the blast location. After the explosion the debris is removed using a JCB and trucks. 
The removed debris is further broke down into usable raw material for road construction by a hydraulic jack hammer. 2-3 such explosion are done daily and each explosion drills 4 m deep into the tunnel. During our final hours at the site we witnessed the setting up of charges for explosion and various equipment used for the process.
We finally left the site at 12.30 PM with a whole new perspective about civil engineering and it's potential scope .
