US Patent Issued to Phoenix Boring on July 14 for "Hybrid tunnel boring using combination of thermal and mechanical processes" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,680,450, issued on July 14, was assigned to Phoenix Boring Inc. (San Francisco).

"Hybrid tunnel boring using combination of thermal and mechanical processes" was invented by Roberto Zillante (San Francisco), Thorin Tobiassen (San Francisco) and Thomas Egan (San Francisco).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Novel hybrid tunnel boring methods, systems, and apparatuses are described. Example hybrid methods integrate (a) thermal processing, e.g., preconditioning and/or thermal spallation (which may be used as pre-treatment), and (b) mechanical processing while boring tunnels in rock and other formations. Thermal processing and mechanical processi...