• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.537-546
• /
• 2013

Traffic congestion in existing tunnels has increased due to increased traffic volume and enlarged vehicles. Enlarging existing tunnels has advantages over constructing new tunnels by reducing land purchasing costs as well as minimizing natural environment destruction. In fact, many overseas projects for enlarging existing tunnels have been reported. Thus, it appears that the demand on enlarging existing tunnels continues to rise in Korea in near future. Nonetheless, the studies related to the enlarged tunnels have been relatively rare since there have been few tunnel enlargement projects in Korea. In the present study, the tunnel behavior and the stability of rock pillar when enlarging existing parallel tunnels were investigated by performing FE analysis and using existing theory and empirical relationships. Four different enlarging cases, depending on the enlargement types and directions, were examined in the study. According to the results, for the tunnels with the same pillar width after enlarged, the uni-laterally enlarged tunnel indicated 5 to 20% higher crown settlement compared to the bi-laterally enlarged tunnel, and for the tunnel with the narrowest pillar, the highest shotcrete stress was observed. Also, the strength/stress ratio for rock pillar was more than 1.0 for all four enlargement cases, and the Matsuda's method was found to give higher strength/stress ratio by about 50% compared to the Peck's method.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.55-61
• /
• 2009

Recently, highway tunnel construction has rapidly been increased due to the limited ground usage and geographical characteristic in Korea, i.e. Korea consists of 70% mountains. In this paper, it was analyzed tunnel collapse patterns in the weathered rockmass. Recent tunnel collapse pattern is quite different from that of past ten years. Tunnels in past years have been collapsed at shallow valley area because of shear strength decrease after heavy rain. Tunnels, which have been constructed recently, were collapsed at even the deeper ground position after primary support. Also in the case that proper reinforcement was not applied, it caused excessive crack at shotcrete and local collapse near tunnel face. In this paper, it was analysed the cause of the recent tunnel collapses and proper reinforcement for the collapsed tunnels.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.283-298
• /
• 2022

Landslides triggered by the combination of heavy precipitation and anthropological disturbance in hilly areas cause severe damage to human lives, properties, and infrastructure constructions. A comprehensive investigation of the influencing factors and failure mechanisms of landslides are significant for disaster mitigation and prevention. This paper utilized the combination of detailed geological investigation, physical experimental testing as well as numerical modelling to determine the failure mechanism, and proposed a countermeasures of the Lantian landslide occurred on 2, July 2017. The results reveal that the Lantian landslide is a catastrophic reactivated slide which occurred in an active tectonic region in Southwest China. Because of the unique geological settings, the fully to highly weathered basalts in the study area with well-developed fractures favored the rainwater infiltration, which is the beneficial to slide reactivation. Engineering excavation and heavy precipitation are the main triggering factors to activate the slide motion. Two failure stages have been identified in the landslide. The first phase involves a shallow mass collapse originated at the upper slopes, which extends from the road to platform at rear part, which is triggered by excavation in the landslide region. Subjected to the following prolonged rainfall from 19 June to 2 July, 2017, the pore water pressure of the slope continually increased, and the groundwater table successively rise, resulting in a significant decrease of soil strength which leads to successive large-scale deep slide. Thereinto, the shallow collapse played a significant role in the formation of the deep slide. Based on the formation mechanisms of the landslide, detailed engineering mitigation measures, involving slope cutting, anchor cable frame, shotcrete and anchorage, retaining wall and intercepting ditch were suggested to reduce the future failure risk of the landslide.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.145-155
• /
• 2010

Recently interest in subsea tunnels is increasing nationwide and the construction of a subsea tunnel is taking place. For the stability of such a subsea tunnel, grouting is necessary for the water barrier and reinforcement of the tunnel. In this study, therefore, it was investigated how the grouting reinforcement had an effect on the stability of a subsea tunnel located in a great depth. To this end, Hydro-mechanical coupled analyses were performed for a sensitivity analysis in terms of different grouting range, rock class, shotcrete thickness, coefficient of lateral earth pressure, grouting thickness, and pumping existence for the rock classes I, III, and V. FLAC-2D ver. 5.0 was used for the numerical analyses. It was came to the conclusion that the effect of the increased water pressure due to the water barrier of the grouting should be considered as well as the strength improved effect in designing grouting reinforcement of subsea tunnels.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.51-69
• /
• 2024

Currently, composite lining mountain tunnels in China are generally classified based on the [BQ] method for the surrounding rock grade. Increasingly, tunnel field construction is replicated indoors for scale down model tests. However, the development of analogous materials for model tests of composite lining tunnels with different surrounding rock grades is still unclear. In this study, typical Class III and V surrounding rock analogous materials and corresponding composite lining support materials were developed. The whole processes of excavation-support dynamics of the mountain tunnels were simulated. Data on the variation of deformations, contact pressures and strains on the surrounding rock were obtained. Finally, a comparative analysis between model tests and numerical simulations was performed to verify the rationality of analogous material development. The following useful conclusions were obtained by analyzing the data from the tests. The main analogous materials of Class III surrounding rock are barite powder, high-strength gypsum and quartz sand with fly ash, quartz sand, anhydrous ethanol and rosin for Class V surrounding rock. Analogous materials for rockbolts, steel arches are replaced by aluminum bar and iron bar respectively with both shotcrete and secondary lining corresponding to gypsum and water. In addition, load release rate of Class V surrounding rock should be less than Class III surrounding rock. The fenestration level had large influence on the load sharing ratio of the secondary lining, with a difference of more than 30%, while the influence of the support time was smaller. The Sharing ratios of secondary lining in Class III surrounding rock do not exceed 12%, while those of Class V surrounding rock exceed 40%. The overall difference between the results of model tests and numerical simulations is small, which verifies the feasibility of similar material development in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
• /
• v.16 no.4
• /
• pp.151-161
• /
• 2017

A TSL (Thin Spray-on Liner) has a higher initial strength and faster construction time than conventional cementitious shotcrete. Because of its high adhesion and tensile strength, the TSL reinforced concrete show a characteristic like composite materials. In this study, to consider an application to the conventional design method, ASD (allowable stress design), numerical study was used. In the numerical analysis, material and contact properties were adopt from previous studies. Then a thickness of concrete in the tunnel was evaluated with the TSL reinforced case by the ASD concept. In other words, bending compressive stress, bending tensile stress and shearing force of the concrete were considered to determine a thickness of concrete lining by the given boundary conditions. From the numerical analysis, there was no tendency to show by the ASD because the ASD is based on the elastic theory while the TSL typically contributes to reinforcement after yielding.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.551-565
• /
• 2017

A spray-applied waterproofing membrane which consists of polymers has a relatively higher constructability and adhesion than the conventional sheet-type waterproofing materials. Additionally, the spray-applied waterproofing membrane generally shows a waterproofing ability as a composite structure with shotcrete or concrete lining. Because its purpose is waterproofing at the structure, structural effects were not well reported than waterproofing abilities. In this study, structural effects of the membrane-attached concrete lining were evaluated using 3-point bending test by the numerical method. From the analysis, a load-displacement behavior of the concrete lining and fracturing energy after yielding were compared with various conditions. Consequently, concrete lining with spray-applied waterproofing membrane shows higher flexural strength and fracturing energy than the single-layer concrete lining.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.273-283
• /
• 2003

Fissured rock and soft ground always suggest, problems in the construction of the underground space. The stress release of the weak underground material by opening the underground space with a soft ground, fissures and joints can lead to the failure of the opening. Grouting of the weak rock and the soft ground, which is a process of injecting some bonding agents into the soft ground, is one of the measures to reinforce the soft ground and to prohibit the failure of the underground construction due to the stress release. The proper installation of the grouting is essential to ensuring the safety of the tunneling operation, so that the evaluation of the grouting performance is very significant. The general procedure of evaluating the grouting is coring the grouted section and measuring the compression strength of the core. However, sometimes when the grouted section is at the crown of the tunnel and the grouting is installed at a wide section, the coring is not good enough. This study is oriented to propose a new and a non-destructive procedure of evaluating the grouting performance. The proposed method is based on the wave propagation of elastic waves, and evaluates the shear stiffness of the ground and investigates the anomalies such as voids and cracks. The SASW ( Spectral-Analysis-of-Surface-Waves) method is one of the candidate s to make the inspection of the pouting performance, and is adopted in this study. The practical grouting activity was monitored by SASW method, and the proposed method was applied to the inspection of the grouting performance to check the verification of the proposed method.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.365-375
• /
• 2006

The structural analysis for the secondary lining of tunnels is generally performed by a frame analysis model. This model requires a ground loosening load estimated by some empirical methods, but the load is likely to be subjective and too large. The ground load acting on the secondary lining is due to the loss of the supporting function of the first support members such as shotcrete and rockbolts. Therefore, the equilibrium condition of the ground and the first support members should be considered to estimate the ground load acting on the secondary lining. Ground-lining interaction model, shortly GLI model, is developed on the basis of the concept that the secondary lining supports the ground deformation triggered by the loss of the support capacity of the first support members. Accordingly, the GLI model can take into account the ground load reflecting effectively not only the complex ground conditions but the installed conditions of the first support members. The load acting on the secondary lining besides the ground load includes the groundwater pressure and earthquake load. For the structural reinforcement of the secondary lining based on the ultimate strength design method, the factored load and various load combination should be considered. Since the GLI model has difficulty in dealing with the factored load, introduced in this study is the superposition principle in which the section moment and force of the secondary lining estimated for individual loads are multiplied by the load factors. Finally, the design method of the secondary lining using the GLI model is applied to the case of a shallow subway tunnel.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
• /
• v.26 no.3
• /
• pp.223-242
• /
• 2024

Single-shell tunnels, introduced to South Korea in the early 2000s, have not been adopted for the main tunnels of roads or railways over the past two decades despite several attempts starting with the Gwangju City Bypass. This reluctance likely arises from concerns about the long-term performance of supporting materials and the absence of relevant criteria and specifications. However, recent progress, including the incorporation of high-strength shotcrete standards and corrosion-resistant rock bolt specifications, alongside equipment and technique enhancements, necessitates a reassessment of single-shell tunnels. While the single-shell tunnel method offers advantages in environmental impact, construction cost and period compared to the conventional NATM, it is crucial to address the challenges, such as limited design and construction experience, incomplete detailed standards, and insufficient construction specifications, through further research and pilot projects. This paper reviewed the basic principles of single-shell tunnel, current application and research status, technical development trends, criteria and specifications, and remaining challenges. It aims to reignite discussions on the feasibility of applying single-shell tunnels in South Korea.