Evaluation of new Austrian tunnelling method applied to Bolu tunnel’s weak rocks

Since the development of the new Austrian tunnelling method(NATM)in the 1960s,this technique has been applied successfully in many tunnels.However,opinions of NATM principles emerged till 2000,i.e.NATM is not a tunnelling method,but an approach covering all general principles of tunnelling.To investigate the general principles of the NATM,this study focused on tunnelling practises in the Bolu tunnel,and evaluated the conditions under which the NATM practises could be effective.The Bolu tunnel project was designed following the NATM principles.It is evident that practises adopted in this tunnel are important with respect to the NATM.In addition,it shows that the solutions to the problems encountered in this tunnel are consistent with the NATM principles.Finally,the study determines the ground types of the NATM principles and proposes associated updates.

Geotechnical investigations and remediation design for failure of tunnel portal section： a case study in northern Turkey

Mass movements are very common problems in the eastern Black Sea region of Turkey due to its climate conditions, geological, and geomorphological characteristics. High slope angle, weathering, dense rainfalls, and anthropogenic impacts are generally reported as the most important triggering factors in the region. Following the portal slope excavations in the entrance section of Cankurtaran tunnel, located in the region, where the highly weathered andesitic tuff crops out, a circular toe failure occurred. The main target of the present study is to investigate the causes and occurrence mechanism of this failure and to determine the feasible remedial measures against it using finite element method(FEM) in four stages. These stages are slope stability analyses for pre-and postexcavation cases, and remediation design assessments for slope and tunnel. The results of the FEM-SSR analyses indicated that the insufficient initial support design and weathering of the andesitic tuffs are the main factors that caused the portal failure. After installing a rock retaining wall with jet grout columns and reinforced slope benching applications, the factor of safety increased from 0.83 to 2.80. In addition toslope stability evaluation, the Rock Mass Rating(RMR), Rock Mass Quality(Q) and New Austrian Tunneling Method(NATM) systems were also utilized as empirical methods to characterize the tunnel ground and to determine the tunnel support design. The performance of the suggested empirical support design, induced stress distributions and deformations were analyzed by means of numerical modelling. Finally, it was concluded that the recommended stabilization technique was essential for the dynamic long-term stability and prevents the effects of failure. Additionally, the FEM method gives useful and reasonably reliable results in evaluating the stability of cut slopes and tunnels excavated both in continuous and discontinuous rock masses.

Estimation of convergence of a high-speed railway tunnel in weak rocks using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system(ANFIS) approach

Estimation of tunnel diameter convergence is a very important issue for tunneling construction,especially when the new Austrian tunneling method（NATM） is adopted.For this purpose,a systematic convergence measurement is usually implemented to adjust the design during the whole construction,and consequently deadly hazards can be prevented.In this study,a new fuzzy model capable of predicting the diameter convergences of a high-speed railway tunnel was developed on the basis of adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system（ANFIS） approach.The proposed model used more than 1 000 datasets collected from two different tunnels,i.e.Daguan tunnel No.2 and Yaojia tunnel No.1,which are part of a tunnel located in Hunan Province,China.Six Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy inference systems were constructed by using subtractive clustering method.The data obtained from Daguan tunnel No.2 were used for model training,while the data from Yaojia tunnel No.1 were employed to evaluate the performance of the model.The input parameters include surrounding rock masses（SRM） rating index,ground engineering conditions（GEC） rating index,tunnel overburden（H）,rock density（？）,distance between monitoring station and working face（D）,and elapsed time（T）.The model’s performance was assessed by the variance account for（VAF）,root mean square error（RMSE）,mean absolute percentage error（MAPE） as well as the coefficient of determination（R2） between measured and predicted data as recommended by many researchers.The results showed excellent prediction accuracy and it was suggested that the proposed model can be used to estimate the tunnel convergence and convergence velocity.