Site Experiment for Predicting Hazardous Geological Formations ahead of Tunnel Face

Abstract

In the construction of railways in western part of China, more and more long tunnels have been excavated these years, and several ones are under construction at the moment. Because of the complex geologies like faults, fractured zones, karst cavities as well as water bearing formations, the stability and safety of tunnels have been challenging topics in the construction process. In this regard, the advance knowledge of the location, size, and spatial information of the uncertainties ahead of the face is very important to the contractors. In this paper, by using the Tunneling Seismic Prediction (TSP) technique, site experiments are performed to predict hazardous formations ahead of face in a railway tunnel. Through interpretation of the testing data, the wave velocities and the mechanical parameters of the surrounding rock are obtained, and the faults/fractures are recognized. The study shows that compared to time-consuming core drilling method, the wave reflection based TSP method can predict major uncertain formations in long range ahead of the face in short time. The downtime, as we know, is one of the key factors in speeding the tunnel construction. For the prediction accuracy, the TSP technique is able to provide enough information due to its multiple proof-test procedure.