Abstract

Predicting hazardous ground conditions ahead of a TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) tunnel face is essential for efficient and stable TBM advance. Although there have been several studies on the electrical resistivity survey method for TBM tunnelling, sufficient experimental data considering TBM advance were not established yet. Therefore, in this study, the laboratory-scale model experiments for simulating TBM excavation were carried out to analyze the applicability of an electrical resistivity survey for predicting hazardous ground conditions ahead of a TBM tunnel face. The trend of electrical resistivity during TBM advance was experimentally evaluated under various hazardous ground conditions (fault zone, seawater intruded zone, soil to rock transition zone, and rock to soil transition zone) ahead of a tunnel face. In the course of the experiments, a scale-down rock ground was provided using granite blocks to simulate the rock TBM tunnelling. Based on the experimental data, the electrical resistivity tends to decrease as the tunnel approaches the fault zone. While the seawater intruded zone follows a similar trend with the fault zone, the resistivity value of the seawater intrude zone decreased significantly compared to that of the fault zone. In case of the soil-to-rock transition zone, the electrical resistivity increases as the TBM approaches the rock with relatively high electrical resistivity. Conversely, in case of therock-to-soil transition zone, the opposite trend was observed. That is, electrical resistivity decreases as the tunnel face approaches the rock with relatively low electrical resistivity. The experiment results represent that hazardous ground conditions (fault zone, seawater intruded zone, soil-to-rock transition zone, rock-to-soil transition zone) can be efficiently predicted by utilizing an electrical resistivity survey during TBM tunnelling.