• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.455-461
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• 2014

The Honam-Jeju, Korea-Japan, and Korea-China subsea tunnel construction projects have drawn significant attention since the early 2000s. These subsea tunnels are much deeper than most existing natural shallow sea tunnels linking coastal areas. Thus, the need for developing new technologies for the site selection and construction of deep subsea tunnels has recently emerged, with the launch of a research project titled "Development of Key Subsea Tunnelling Technology" in 2013. A component of this research, an analysis of deep subsea geological structure, is currently underway. A ground investigation, such as a borehole or geophysical investigation, is generally carried out for tunnel design. However, when investigating a potential site for a deep subsea tunnel, borehole drilling requires equipment at the scale of offshore oil drilling. The huge cost of such an undertaking has raised the urgent need for methods to indirectly assess the local geological structure as much as possible to limit the need for repeated borehole investigations. This study introduces an indirect approach for assessing the geological structure of the seafloor through a submarine bathymetry analysis. The ultimate goal here is to develop an automated approach to the analysis of submarine geological structures, which may prove useful in the selection of future deep subsea tunnel sites.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.36-47
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• 2017

As a typical domestic subsea tunnel construction the Gadeok subsea tunnel applying the method of immersed tunnel has been completed and the Boryeong-Taean subsea tunnel is under construction using NATM. The high-speed railway subsea tunnels between the Honam and Jeju are under consideration, and the feasibility of constructing subsea tunnels with Japan and China is also under consideration. However, it is difficult to provide the process plan information for the construction work such as the analysis of the feasibility of the subsea tunnel and the prediction of the proper construction period because there is no case of domestic construction for it applying the shield TBM method. Due to economic and other reasons, government organizations are reluctant to apply the shield TBM, and there is lack of data on the construction process management field using the shield TBM method. Therefore, a standard construction process management system for the subsea tunnel is needed to analyze the feasibility of the subsea tunnel and to predict the proper construction period. By presenting the standard construction process management system of subsea tunnels such as WBS, Network Diagram, and construction period calculation model, I hope to contribute technically and economically to future subsea tunnel projects.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.15-38
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• 2022

Recently, tunnel technology in Korea has shown various achievements such as long tunnel and large section by tunnel construction using TBM in Korea and abroad. Especially subsea tunnels are frequently designed and constructed. The Ga-deok subsea tunnel was completed in December 2010, and the Incheon North Port Tunnel was opened and operated in 2017, and the Bo-ryeong subsea tunnel between Dae-cheon Port and Won-san Island will be completed in 2021. In foreign countries, many subsea tunnels have been constructed and operated in such as Norway and Japan. The main technical problem in the construction of subsea tunnel is to secure stability due to high water pressure conditions and large-scale seawater inflow in fault zones and weak zones. In this paper, various risk factors and solutions are described in the subsea tunnel planning of national road 77 construction work between Abhae and Hwawon.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.1571-1580
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• 2008

Subsea tunnels that link land to island and among nations for transportation, efficient development of limited surface and pursuit of economic development should be designed to support pore water pressure on the lining. It is generally constructed in the bed rock of the sea bottom. When the tunnel excavation face meets fractured-zones below sea bottom, collapse may occur due to an increase of pore water pressure and large inflow. Such an example can be found in the Norwegian subsea tunnel experiences in 1980's. In this study hydraulic behavior of tunnel heading is investigated using numerical method based on the collapse of Norwegian subsea tunnel. The effect of pore water pressure and inflow rate were mainly concerned. Horse-shoe shaped model tunnel which has 50 m depth from the sea bottom is considered. To evaluate hydraulic performance, parametric study was carried out for varying relative permeability. It is revealed that pore water pressure has increased with an increase of sea depth. Especially, at the fractured-zone, pore water pressure on the lining has increased significantly. Inflow rate into tunnel has also increased correspondingly with an increase in sea depth. S-shaped characteristic relation between relative permeability and normalized pore water pressure was obtained.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.355-363
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• 2006

In this study, it was analyzed how the pore pressure behind a subsea tunnel influences on the stability of the tunnel. The tunnel is located in the soft rock layer, and a soft sandy layer and weathered soil layer are located on the top of it. Coupled numerical analyses are performed for both drained and undrained condition with varying coefficients of lateral earth pressure. In the case of undrained conditions, the stability of the tunnel was analyzed with different thicknesses of shotcrete. On the other hand, a sensitivity analysis was performed with different hydraulic conductivities and porosities of the shotcrete for the drained conditions. The stability of a subsea tunnel was evaluated in terms of safety factor suggested by You et al.(2000, 2001, 2005) based on the shear strength reduction technique. In this paper, the safety factor of a tunnel was calculated under steady state flow condition during hydro-mechanical coupled analysis. As a result, it was found that the stability of a subsea tunnel could be rather increased by allowing a proper amount of groundwater inflow into a subsea tunnel.

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

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.291-304
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• 2011

Recently concern for subsea tunnels is increasing, The effect of high water pressure can not be ignored in the case of a deep subsea tunnel. Reinforcement like grouting is necessary for the stability of such a subsea tunnel. In this study, therefore, it was investigated how the water barrier and shear strength increment resulted from grouting had an effect on the stability of a subsea tunnel. To this end, two-dimensional hydromechanical coupled analyses were performed for a sensitivity analysis in terms of different range, permeability coefficient, and cohesion of grouting reinforcement for the rock classes I, III, and V with respect to RMR system. The mutual relationship between strength increment and water pressure increased by barrier effect due to grouting was investigated by analyzing the numerical results.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.17 no.1 s.66
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• pp.1-8
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• 2007

In Norway, about 30 subsea tunnels have been constructed over the last 20 years. The minimum depth of 17 subsea tunnels is 56 m and rock cover are between 23 and 49 m. As the project areas for subsea tunnel are covered by water, special investigation techniques need to be applied and the investigation results are more uncertain than that of most conventional tunnel projects. The indefinite potential of water inflow and the salinic character of ingress water represent considerable problems for tunnel equipment and rock support materials. The least stable conditions are represented by major faults or weakness zones containing heavily crushed rock and clay gouge. This paper introduces the Oslofjord subsea tunnel project including minimum rock cover requirement, risk of water inflow, investigation costs, construction costs, and traffic & operation costs.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.687-699
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• 2018

The construction of subsea tunnel differs from that of inland tunnel because of high water pressure due to sea water level and difficulties to reinforce the ground under construction. Therefore, it is very important to prevent trouble in advance when the subsea tunnel is constructed. In this paper, we established lots of databases about characteristics of geological and mechanical parameters on the construction of subsea tunnel using micro slurry TBM which depth is about 60 m. The correlation analysis is conducted to confirm the effect of thrust, torque and RPM among the excavation database on the net penetration rate. Also, An empirical formula is suggested to predict the net penetration rate through the correlation analysis between FPI (Field Penetration Index) and specific energy from the subsea tunnel excavation database.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.829-843
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• 2017

Subsea tunnel needs to be built over 50 km long to connect between nations and continents. However there are only 19 tunnels longer than 5 km until recently. And there is no history of constructing and operating tunnel longer than 50 km. In Korea, subsea tunnels with a length of more than 50 km are being planned, such as Korea~Japan, Korea~China, Honam~Jeju subsea tunnels. Because of the geographical conditions of Korea, most of these tunnels are inter-contry tunnels. So technology preemption for the subsea tunnel construction is getting more and more important. Most of these subsea tunnels are ultra-long tunnels under high water pressure conditions. So new technologies are required such as ventilation and disaster prevention of high-speed tunnels, securing of structural stability under high pressure conditions, and pressure reduction in high-speed conditions. These technologies are different from those of ground tunnels. Therefore, this paper describes the ultra-long subsea tunnel design under high water pressure of maximum 16 bars through the Honam (land) - Jeju (island) virtual subsea project. We proposed a reasonable solution to various problems such as securing structural stability in high pressure condition and ventilation disaster prevention system of ultra long-tunnel.