Simulating Groundwater Inflow in the Underground Tunnel with a Coupled Fracture-Matrix Model
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 18, Issue 11
Abstract
Groundwater inflow during tunnel excavation is a common problem in practice. How to accurately predict its occurrence during the construction is still a challenging problem for tunnel designers. A numerical method, based on the coupled model involved in artery fractures described by a discrete fractured network model and ramification fractures and rock matrix described by the equivalent continuum medium model, is developed to calculate the groundwater inflow of underground tunnel. The model is calibrated with the observed groundwater levels in the study domain. The results in the model calibration show that calculated and measured groundwater inflows agree well. Sensitivity analysis indicates that groundwater inflow increases with the increase of precipitation rate, hydraulic conductivity of rock matrix and fracture aperture. The effect of fracture aperture on groundwater inflow is predominant, owing to the occurring of many artery fractures around the tunnel, which leads to much groundwater flowing to the tunnel through these fractures.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This study has been supported by Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University under Grant (IRT0717), Program for Non-profit Industry Financial Program of MWR (200901064, 201001020), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2009B00514), Natural Science Foundation of China (51079043), and project of National Key Development Program for Fundamental Research (2010CB951101).
References
Bear, J. (1972). Dynamics of fluids in porous media, Elsevier, New York.
Chen, M. Z., Liu, S. C., and Yang, G. Y. (2009). “The development of mining water inflow predict method.” Chin. J. Eng. Geophys., 6(1), 68–71 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Chen, N. X., Cao, L. H., Li, M., and Huang, Q. (2005). “Forecasting water yield of mine with the partial least-square method and neural network.” J. Jilin Univ. Earth Sci., 35(6), 766–770 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Chen, Z. H., Chen, Z. H., Zhang, X., and Ding, J. T. (2010). “Application of R/S analysis method to forecasting ground water inflow of mining pit.” Min. Saf. Environ. Prot., 37(1), 36–44 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Fernandez, G., and Moon, J. (2010). “Excavation-induced hydraulic conductivity reduction around a tunnel. Part 1: Guideline for estimate of ground water inflow rate.” Tunneling Underground Space Technol., 25(5), 560–566.
Golob, R., Stokelj, T., and Grgic, D. (1998). “Neural-network-based water inflow forecasting.” Control Eng. Pract., 6(5), 593–600.
Hwang, J. H., and Lu, C. C. (2007). “A semi-analytical method for analyzing the tunnel water inflow.” Tunnelling and Underground Space Technol., 22(1), 39–46.
Ivars, D. M. (2006). “Water inflow into excavations in fractured rock-a three-dimensional hydro-mechanical numerical study.” Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci., 43(5), 705–725.
Ma, H. C., and Lin, L. X. (2009). “Forecasting of ground water inflow for mining pit with big well method.” Mining Technol., 9(2), 53–55.
Matuszyk, J. H., and Szczepaniak, J. S. (1988). “Water inflow phenomena during construction of railway tunnels on the Ramdane-Djamel-Jijel line in Algeria.” Proc., Int. Congress on Tunnels and Water, A. A. Balkema, Rotterdam, 525–527.
Singh, R. N., and Atkins, A. S. (1985). “Analytical techniques for the estimation of mine water inflow.” Int. J. Min. Eng., 3, 65–77.
Yang, Y. G., and Chen, Y. H. (2009). “Chaotic characteristics and prediction for water inrush in mine.” J. China Univ. Geosci., 34(2), 258–262 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Zhang, L., and Franklin, J. A. (1993). “Prediction of water flow into rock tunnels: an analytical solution assuming a hydraulic conductivity gradient.” Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci., 30(1), 37–46.
Zhang, X. M. (2007). “Estimation of water yield in underground water power station.” Water Resour. Hydropower of Northeast, 25(5), 14–16 (in Chinese with English abstract).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 11, 2010
Accepted: Jun 7, 2011
Published online: Jun 10, 2011
Discussion open until: Nov 10, 2011
Published in print: Nov 1, 2013
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.