Assessment of Rock Mass Quality and Deformation Modulus by Empirical Methods along Kandiah River, KPK, Pakistan

The pivotal aim of this study is to evaluate the rock mass characterization and deformation modulus. It is vital for rock mass classification to investigate important parameters of discontinuities. Therefore, Rock Mass Rating (RMR) and Tunneling quality index (Q) classification systems are applied to analyze 22 segments along proposed tunnel routes for hydropower in Kandiah valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. RMR revealed the range of fair to good quality rocks, whereas Q yielded poor to fair quality rocks for investigated segments of the rock mass. Besides, Em values were acquired by empirical equations and computer-aided program RocLab, and both methods presented almost similar variation trend of their results. Hence, the correlations of Em with Q and RMR were carried out with higher values of the regression coefficient. This study has scientific significance to initially understand the rock mass conditions of Kandiah valley.

Stability Evaluation of Slopes Using Kinematic and Limit Equilibrium Analyses in Seismically Active Balakot, KPK, Pakistan

The Northern segment of Pakistan, especially Balakot city is affected up to large extent by the landslides. Tectonically, it lies in the proximity of Hazara Kashmir Syntaxis and other two active regional faults: Main Boundary and Hazara Frontal Thrusts that traversing right through the Balakot town. This study focuses on the evaluation of slopes near Balakot town in static and pseudo-static condition. A geological map is produced at 1:24,000 scale to separate various rock and soil units. During reconnaissance study, two slopes were selected which seem prone to sliding. The procured data on condition of natural slope, properties of material entailed, structural setting, and vegetation cover distribution was gathered. Discontinuity Surveys of slopes were carried out to collect discontinuity parameters. Kinematic analyses were performed on DIPS v. 7.0 to assess mode of failures based on joints data. Limit equilibrium analyses were carried out at Slide v. 7.0 to check factor of safety at different conditions. The study concluded that the slopes were affected by the plane, wedge and toppling failures, while although in seismically active zone, circular failure is not likely.

Geotechnical Investigation and Prediction of Rock Burst, Squeezing with Remediation Design by Numerical Analyses along Headrace Tunnel in Swat Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

This study illustrates the classification of the rock mass and evaluation of rock squeezing, rock burst potential, deformation modulus along the proposed tunnel alignment of small hydropower in Swat Valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. The field and laboratory studies were conducted to classify the rock mass by using geomechanical classification systems i.e. Rock Mass Rating (RMR), tunneling quality index (Q), Rock Mass Index (RMi). The empirical relations classified the ground as non-squeezing and minor to non-squeezing conditions, respectively. Whereas, other methods depict minor to medium bursting potential along chainage 1+000 to 4+000 m, while results along chainage 2+400 - 2+800 m present medium to high bursting potential. Furthermore, numerical analyses were carried out by RS3 for elastic and plastic conditions in order to assess the total displacement of each section in unsupported and supported conditions. The results gave maximum displacement along chainage 2+400 - 2+800 m (19.2 mm in unsupported and 16mm in supported condition) and minimum displacement along chainage 0+876 - 1+000 m (1.4 mm in unsupported and 1.3 mm in supported condition). Hence, the estimated support by empirical methods has been optimized by using numerical analyses for the stability of rock mass along the tunnel.

Assessment of Rock Mass Quality and Support Estimation along Headrace Tunnel of a Small Hydropower in District Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

The main purpose of this study is to classify the rock mass quality by using rock mass quality (Q) and Rock Mass Rating (RMR) systems along headrace tunnel of small hydropower in Mansehra District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Geological field work was carried out to determine the orientation, spacing, aperture, roughness and alteration of discontinuities of rock mass. The quality of rock mass along the tunnel route is classified as good to very poor quality by Q system, while very good to very poor by RMR classification system. The relatively good rock conditions are acquired via RMR values that are attributed to ground water conditions, joint spacing, RQD and favorable orientation of discontinuities with respect to the tunnel drive. The petrographic studies revealed that study area is mainly comprised of five major geological rock units namely quartz mica schist (QMS), garnet mica schist (GMS), garnet bearing quartz mica schist (G-QMS), calcareous schist (CS), marble (M). The collected samples of quartz mica schist, marble and garnet bearing quartz mica schist are fine to medium grained, compact and are cross cut by few discontinuities having greater spacing. Therefore, these rocks have greater average RQD, Q values, RMR ratings as compared to garnet mica schist and calcareous schist.

Geotechnical and Hydrological Characterization of Subsurface for Metallic Minerals Mining Operations in Punjab, Pakistan

The study area is covered by alluvium having average thickness of about 200 m that is underlain by the Precambrian basement rock units including iron ore to be mined in future. In this regards, necessary campaign of subsurface investigations including both geotechnical and hydrogeological has been carried. In geotechnical investigations, disturbed and undisturbed samples were collected from five (5) boreholes and hydrological investigations by using water pump out test were conducted to determine the characteristics of aquifer. Rock samples were also collected from already drilled boreholes for iron ore estimation from a depth of more than 200 m. The laboratory testing has classified alluvium as silty sand/sandy silt (SP-SM/SM) and clayey silt/non-plastic silt (CL-ML/ML) as per soil classification criteria having angel of friction of 31.4 - 38.5 degree with bulk density of 1.461 - 1.853 g/cc. The initial void ratio (eo) varies from 0.412 to 0.952 with no swell potential in consolidation tests. The chemical analyses of the soil have indicated values of 0.003% - 0.006%, 0.0012% - 0.0057%, 0.013% - 0.030% sulphate, chloride and organic matter contents respectively with pH-value of 6.92 - 7.56. The strength of the underlying rock was found to be medium strong to very strong corresponding to values of 25 - 140 MPa in uniaxial compression and indirect tensile strength of 15.66 MPa. Hydrological study reveals that aquifer is unconfined and generally isotropic in nature. The average transmissivity, hydraulic conductivity and storage coefficient are 6038 m2/day, 4.0 × 101 m/day and 0.016, respectively that presented aquifer is quite permeable. The cone of influence covered area of 65 m from main production well. For the open pit mining operation, stability analysis is performed by assuming a 4V:1H slope in the bedrock while 1V:1H in the overlying sediments cover using Limit-Equilibrium (LE) analysis in Slide computer program. However, overburden slope was concluded to be unstable with the analyzed slope angle. The deformation analysis for mine slopes by finite element method was performed using Phase 2 (RS) software. The results show maximum deformation is likely to be in order of as high as 700 mm for individual slope riser whereas in the range of 300 to 400 mm for the overall slope.

AQUA Satellite Data and Imputation of Geopotential Height: A Case Study for Pakistan

In current study an attempt is carried out by filling missing data of geopotiential height over Pakistan and identifying the optimum method for interpolation. In last thirteen years geopotential height values over were missing over Pakistan. These gaps are tried to be filled by interpolation Techniques. The techniques for interpolations included Bilinear interpolations [BI], Nearest Neighbor [NN], Natural [NI] and Inverse distance weighting [IDW]. These imputations were judged on the basis of performance parameters which include Root Mean Square Error [RMSE], Mean Absolute Error [MAE], Correlation Coefficient [Corr] and Coefficient of Determination [R2]. The NN and IDW interpolation Imputations were not precise and accurate. The Natural Neighbors and Bilinear interpolations immaculately fitted to the data set. A good correlation was found for Natural Neighbor interpolation imputations and perfectly fit to the surface of geopotential height. The root mean square error [maximum and minimum] values were ranges from ±5.10 to ±2.28 m respectively. However mean absolute error was near to 1. The validation of imputation revealed that NN interpolation produced more accurate results than BI. It can be concluded that Natural Interpolation was the best suited interpolation technique for filling missing data sets from AQUA satellite for geopotential height.

Accurate Imputation for Relative Humidity over Pakistan Gathered from AQUA Satellite

The relative humidity in the atmosphere captured by AQUA satellite contains missing matrices. In order to fill such missing values four very popular imputation techniques: Bilinear, Inverse Distance Weighting, Natural Neighbor and Nearest Interpolations were tested. Mean Absolute Error (MAE), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Coefficient of Determination (R2) and Correlation Coefficient (Corr), were used to check the accuracy of these interpolations. It was found that the Inverse Distance Weighting and Nearest Interpolation were proved not to be suited. Natural interpolation gave accurate results than the aforementioned two interpolations. Missing values of relative humidity were accurately refilled with Bilinear Interpolation. This interpolation produced RMSE of ±0.543 for relative humidity over 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 400, 500 hPa while for 600, 700, 850 and 925 hPa RMSE remainnear to 1. A perfect fit to the surface and very strong correlation (value near to 0.99) was found between actual and imputed relative humidity data through Bilinear Interpolation. Therefore it was concluded that the Bilinear Interpolation is the most accurate and best imputation for missing values of relative humidity form 100 to 1000 hPa levels.