Master Builders Solutions MasterRoc ABR (anti-abrasion agents)
Foam-conditioning technology that keeps EPB and hard-rock TBM cutterheads cutting through abrasive ground instead of grinding to a halt.
What is it?
A light-brown, water-soluble liquid foaming and anti-abrasion agent dosed into a tunnel boring machine’s cutterhead to condition excavated ground, cut cutter wear and suppress dust.
Where is it used?
EPB and hard-rock TBM drives on metro, road/rail, hydro-power and large-diameter utility tunnels – not in cast or ready-mix concrete.
Why use it?
Reduces abrasive wear on disc cutters, cuts unplanned downtime for cutter changes, controls dust at the face, and improves muck transfer through the screw conveyor.
How is it applied?
Mixed into a roughly 2-3% (general range 2-6%) solution in water, expanded to foam at a recommended ratio of 8-15, and injected through the TBM’s foam ports at an injection rate of around 30%, tuned on site to ground conditions.
About Master Builders Solutions MasterRoc ABR (anti-abrasion agents)
Delhi NCR’s newer metro corridors, road tunnels and hydro-power headrace tunnels are increasingly bored by tunnel boring machines rather than blasted through by drill-and-blast crews. That shift solves a lot of problems but creates a new one: the cutterhead of an EPB or hard-rock TBM sits in constant, high-pressure contact with abrasive ground, from quartzitic gneiss under the Delhi ridge to granitic and phyllitic rock in Himalayan hydro tunnels. Disc cutters wear down, muck sticks to the cutterhead and screw conveyor, dust chokes the tunnel face, and every unplanned cutter change stops the machine for hours at a stretch. MasterRoc ABR is Master Builders Solutions’ answer to that specific problem: a liquid foaming and anti-abrasion agent dosed into the excavation chamber to condition the ground, cool the face and cut mechanical wear on the tooling.
The chemistry is deliberately simple to keep it compatible with the harsh, high-shear environment inside a cutterhead. MasterRoc ABR is a light-brown, water-soluble liquid based on renewable feedstock, mixed on-site into a dilute foam solution and pumped through the TBM’s own foam-generation and injection system. Once expanded into foam at the cutterhead, it lowers the internal friction of the excavated material, keeps the muck flowing rather than caking, and knocks down the fine dust that otherwise builds up around the face. Space Arc supplies MasterRoc ABR to TBM contractors and specialist tunnelling subcontractors working on Delhi NCR metro packages, highway tunnel drives and water/hydro tunnels, and works with the site’s MEP/mining team to get the foam expansion ratio and injection rate right for the specific ground being cut, since no two tunnel geologies behave the same way.
The technical insight
The two numbers that actually govern ABR’s performance on site are foam expansion ratio (FER) and foam injection rate (FIR), not the raw dosage percentage alone. MBS’s own data for the ABR 7 grade sets a recommended FER of 8-15 and a typical FIR of around 30%, with the concentrate mixed at 2-3% in water under general conditions (working range 2-6%). In practice this means the “dosage” a site actually cares about is a three-variable system – concentrate strength, how much air is whipped into it, and how much of that foam volume is injected relative to excavated ground volume – and all three need adjusting as the TBM moves from, say, weathered overburden into fresh gneiss. The formulation is pH-neutral (6-7) and fully water-soluble, which is why it plays well with polymer soil conditioners like MasterRoc SLP 1 when a site needs extra foam stability in high-permeability or coarse-grained ground – the two are frequently dosed together rather than as alternatives to each other.
Where it is used
- Foam conditioning of excavated soil in Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) TBM drives
- Anti-abrasion and dust-suppression dosing in hard-rock TBM tunnelling
- Metro and underground rail tunnel boring through mixed-face or abrasive strata
- Road and rail highway tunnel drives through granitic, gneissic or phyllitic rock
- Hydro-power headrace and water-conveyance tunnels bored mechanically
- Sewer, storm-water and utility tunnels driven by micro-TBM or pipe-jacking rigs
- Combined dosing with MasterRoc soil-conditioning polymers for stability in permeable ground
- Cutterhead and screw-conveyor lubrication to reduce clogging on long single-pass drives
Key advantages
- Cuts abrasive wear on disc cutters and cutterhead tooling, directly reducing the frequency of cutter-change stoppages
- Substantially reduces dust generation at the face, improving the working environment for TBM operators and site crew
- Improves muck transfer through the screw conveyor and reduces clogging risk around the cutterhead
- Better cutterhead cooling extends rubber seal life and cutter bearing assembly durability
- Higher, more consistent advance rates translate into lower overall excavation cost per metre
- Reduces TBM power draw compared with excavating unconditioned abrasive ground
- Formulated from renewable raw materials and compatible with tight environmental discharge standards on urban metro sites
- Can be used alongside MasterRoc polymer conditioners (e.g. MasterRoc SLP 1) to fine-tune foam stability in high-permeability or mixed-face ground
Limitations & considerations
- Not a concrete admixture – it has no role in cast-in-place or ready-mix concrete work, despite sitting in Space Arc’s admixtures listing for lack of a dedicated tunnelling category
- Only usable with a TBM’s foam-generation and injection system; there is no practical hand-dosing method for open excavation or drill-and-blast tunnels
- Correct dosage, foam expansion ratio and injection rate are ground-specific and need on-site trialling with MBS/Space Arc technical support rather than a fixed data-sheet number
- Must not be allowed to freeze in storage, which needs planning on hill-tunnel or high-altitude hydro projects with cold winters
- No published IS/ASTM/BS code governs this niche, tunnelling-specific product category, so acceptance is typically by project specification and manufacturer data rather than a national standard
- Publicly available technical data (from the US market sheet) does not itself confirm an India-specific SKU, dosage or pricing – confirm current India availability and grade with Space Arc before specifying
Selection & best practice
Treat dosage as a starting point, not a fixed number: MasterRoc ABR is used as a roughly 2-3% solution in water in typical service (general working range 2-6%), with a recommended foam expansion ratio of 8-15 and a foam injection rate around 30%, but the right setting depends entirely on the ground being cut and must be trialled and tuned on site with your TBM conditioning engineer, ideally with Space Arc’s applicator team involved from the first advance. Store drums and totes between 5-35°C, keep them sealed until use, and never let the product freeze – a frozen batch cannot simply be thawed back to spec, so plan winter site storage (relevant for hill-tunnel projects) accordingly. Because foam performance is sensitive to water hardness and mixing water quality, use the same water source you plan to run with when doing initial trial batches, and recheck foam stability if you switch water tankers mid-project. Log FER/FIR settings against ground conditions as you advance so the crew has a working reference when the geology changes face by face, which it often does on Himalayan and NCR mixed-strata drives.
Specifications
| Form | Liquid |
| Colour | Light brown |
| Density at 20 degrees C | 1035 – 1045 kg/m3 |
| pH at 20 degrees C | 6 – 7 |
| Solubility in water | Total |
| Typical dosage | 2-3% solution in water (general range 2-6%) |
| Foam expansion ratio (FER) | 8-15 |
| Foam injection rate (FIR) | Typically 30% |
| Shelf life / storage | 12 months unopened, 5-35 degrees C, do not allow to freeze |
| Packaging | 18.5 L pails, 207 L drums, 1,039 L totes; bulk on request |
Industry use cases
Metro / urban rail tunnelling
EPB TBM drives through Delhi NCR’s mixed alluvial-to-rock strata, where foam conditioning keeps muck workable and limits face dust in confined urban shaft sites.
Hydro-power tunnelling
Hard-rock TBM headrace and tailrace tunnel drives through Himalayan granite/gneiss, where cutter life directly drives project schedule and cost.
Highway and rail tunnels
Long-bore road and rail tunnels through hard, abrasive rock formations where unplanned cutter-change stoppages are the single biggest cause of TBM downtime.
Water and sewer infrastructure
Large-diameter water-conveyance and trunk sewer tunnels bored mechanically under cities, where dust control also matters for worker safety in confined tunnel conditions.
Specialist tunnelling contractors
Contractors running their own foam-generation skids on hired or owned TBMs, sourcing conditioning chemistry project-by-project rather than carrying long-term stock.
Frequently asked questions
Is MasterRoc ABR a concrete admixture like MasterGlenium or MasterPolyheed?
What is the difference between MasterRoc ABR 5 and ABR 7?
What dosage rate should we plan for?
Do we need special equipment to use it?
How is it packed and what is its shelf life?
Can Space Arc supply and support this for an ongoing Delhi NCR metro or tunnel project?
How we position Master Builders Solutions MasterRoc ABR (anti-abrasion agents)
MasterRoc ABR sits inside Master Builders Solutions’ MasterRoc range for underground construction and mining, alongside other tunnelling chemistries Space Arc can source through the same MBS relationship – shotcrete accelerators (MasterRoc SA series), soil-conditioning polymers such as MasterRoc SLP 1 that are often dosed together with ABR, and grouting/backfill mortars like MasterRoc MP 355 for TBM annulus grouting. For projects that also need conventional concrete admixtures – superplasticizers, retarders, shrinkage-reducing agents for the tunnel lining segments or in-situ concrete – those come from MBS’s separate MasterGlenium, MasterPolyheed and MasterSet families, which Space Arc stocks for ready-mix and precast use. On the specialist TBM anti-abrasion/foam-conditioning side specifically, there is no genuine Fosroc equivalent to name: Fosroc’s Indian portfolio is built around concrete admixtures, waterproofing and repair mortars rather than tunnelling foam-conditioning agents, so this is a category where MBS (through its legacy MEYCO tunnelling technology) is effectively the specifier’s default rather than one of several comparable brands.
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