The Apollo Future Industrial City is located in the Eastern Science and Technology Corridor of Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. This approximately 50 square kilometer park is neat and tidy, without intricate underground pipelines or dense aerial cables. Where are the municipal pipelines hidden? 
Pipeline entering corridor, releasing land resources
Deep underground in the core area of the industrial city, a comprehensive pipe gallery with a total length of about 5.6 kilometers runs through it. Almost all municipal pipelines, including electricity, communication, gas, water supply, and sewage, have been installed into this underground passage.
Zhang Gelei put on his helmet and walked into this underground utility tunnel. The corridor has good lighting and smooth air circulation. As the project installation manager, he and his colleagues carefully inspected the comprehensive pipe gallery structure and checked the drainage system, making sufficient preparations for the rainy season.
The Apollo project is currently one of the largest comprehensive pipe gallery projects in China, with the most compartments and the most complete pipelines included. It is like a functional "collective dormitory": rainwater tanks, sewage tanks, gas tanks, comprehensive pipeline tanks, power and telecommunications tanks, and high-voltage power tanks are arranged side by side. The compartments are separated by concrete walls, which do not interfere with each other and work efficiently together. The gas compartment is equipped with explosion-proof electrical and independent ventilation; The sewage tank has its own "sewage system" and deodorization device to prevent odor from escaping, settling and blocking; The pipelines for water supply and reclaimed water are separated on both sides of the same compartment, each following its own path.
After the intensive utilization of underground space, high-value land resources have been released, freeing up valuable space for the landing of high-end industries in the park, "said Xichunhuai, the general manager of Shenzhen Longgang Information Pipeline Co., Ltd. The comprehensive pipe gallery project is divided into compartments according to pipeline safety levels and set up under the green belt to minimize the impact of daily operation and maintenance on municipal transportation.
Intelligent inspection to improve maintenance efficiency
Under the traditional direct burial method, different pipeline constructions are carried out independently, and the "road zipper" is repeatedly excavated, which not only affects transportation and people's livelihoods, but also hinders the construction of the business environment. The pipeline is buried underground, directly in contact with soil and groundwater, with fast corrosion, short service life, and relatively high risk management and operation costs in the later stage, "said Liu Pengfei, Chief Engineer of Apollo Project of China 20th Metallurgical Group Corporation Limited.
Nowadays, in the industrial city, all pipelines are centralized into the corridor, with unified planning, construction, and management. In case of a malfunction, workers only need to enter the comprehensive pipe gallery through the personnel entrance and exit for operation, with no road closures, fences, or disturbance to residents on the ground. The newly added pipelines can be laid in the comprehensive pipe gallery, and there is no need to "open up" the road.
Zhao Shidong, Deputy General Manager of China 20th Metallurgical Group Corporation Shenzhen Branch and Apollo Project Manager, calculated that building an underground comprehensive pipe gallery, although the one-time investment is relatively high, reduces the hidden costs of repeated road excavation, losses from early pipeline scrapping, and social costs caused by traffic congestion. In the long run, it is actually more cost-effective.
In the comprehensive pipeline compartment, a inspection robot slowly moves along the top track, and monitors the gallery structure, pipeline status, and environmental indicators in real time through infrared lenses and various sensors. Firefighting robots are always on standby, and once they detect flames or abnormal heating, they will automatically rush to the target area for quick disposal.
Returning to the ground, on the large screen of the project monitoring center, the "vital signs" of the comprehensive pipe gallery are clear at a glance: temperature, humidity, oxygen concentration, fire monitoring... All kinds of data are monitored in real-time and intelligently warned, which not only liberates workers from heavy manual inspections, but also significantly enhances the resilience of the city to cope with extreme weather and emergencies. The combination of robots and manual inspections effectively compensates for the shortcomings of traditional inspections, such as time-consuming, labor-intensive, blind spots, and high safety risks, and greatly improves maintenance response efficiency, "said Zhang Gelei.
Innovative construction, reserved upgrade space
In addition to intelligent operation and maintenance, the comprehensive pipe gallery also has ingenious ideas in ecology and construction. The Apollo project is located in a low-lying area, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing water on one side. In the past, when rainstorm happened, the rain washed down from the hillside, and the water accumulated in the lower place instantly became a river. The comprehensive pipe gallery planning and construction fully integrates the concept of sponge city, linking rainwater tanks with ecological permeable paving, sunken green spaces, ecological reservoirs and other sponge facilities to improve the drainage and flood prevention system. Since the comprehensive pipe gallery was put into use in 2021, there has been no occurrence of waterlogging here, "said Liu Pengfei. The regulated rainwater can be used for municipal irrigation, road flushing, and can also supplement surrounding rivers during the dry season, achieving on-site consumption or reuse.
The innovative construction method of "pipe tunnel co construction" was adopted for the mountain crossing section of the project. The vehicle tunnel and the comprehensive pipe gallery high-voltage power cabin were constructed simultaneously, which not only avoided deforestation and protected the mountains and waters, but also shortened the construction period.
Entering the power and telecommunications cabin, multiple telecommunications optical cables are neatly arranged on one side of the support arm, leaving reserve space for future pipeline expansion. On the bulkhead of the comprehensive pipe gallery, there are 22 communication pipeline interfaces leading to the park, arranged in an orderly manner like unopened sockets. In the future, whether it is a newly settled enterprise that needs to connect to network cables or upgrade communication technology to lay new lines, it can be easily completed without the need for road breaking construction again. At present, there are 9 types of municipal pipelines in the pipeline gallery, which not only provide sufficient power and communication channels, but also reserve upgrade space for new technologies such as 6G and computing power grid. ”Zhao Shidong said.
The practice of the Apollo project has provided technical and management experience for the construction of comprehensive pipe galleries, "said Yang Yongli, Deputy Director of the Housing and Construction Bureau of Longgang District, Shenzhen. Since 2016, Longgang District has started the construction of 8 comprehensive pipe gallery projects, with 60.45 kilometers of comprehensive pipe galleries completed, and is continuously expanding the coverage breadth and depth of the comprehensive pipe gallery network.
In Shenzhen, this comprehensive pipe gallery construction model has been orderly promoted in projects such as the Airport New City and Keyuan Avenue. In addition to the newly built urban areas, it has also extended to the built-up areas. Through prefabricated assembly construction and accompanying subway construction, the old pipe network has been "revitalized", making the underground space more orderly and safer. Through forward-looking planning, high standard design, and intelligent operation and maintenance, the comprehensive pipe gallery network system is accelerating its construction in Shenzhen, becoming an important component of municipal infrastructure. (Outlook New Era)