Location
San Diego, California
Presentation Date
29 May 2010, 8:00 am - 9:30 am
Abstract
Since early sixties numerous tunnels had been planned and constructed for hydro-electric power generation in the Himalayan Region of India. The mountain chain is of very recent origin geologically and is believed to be still active tectonically. The geology is complex and tunneling under such circumstances had been a real challenge. It was a tough task to predict the geotechnical behaviour of the tunneling media. Beginning with the classical approach of Terzaghi (1925-46) many rock pressure estimation theories had been evolved for prediction and estimation of rock pressure for designing competent and stable tunnel supports. The author has made an attempt to project real field data, which is rare to find, during a period of over thirty years of his association with the construction of numerous tunnels driven through diverse rock formations. Various theories in vogue for rock pressure assessment yielded different results. An attempt had also been made to reason out the differences. The rock pressure assessment is still a dark area, shaded darker when dealing with weak and very weak rock formations. It is believed that earthquakes affect the surface structures most but the sub surface structures are less affected. Some earthquakes occurring in India support this notion.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2010 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Dube, A. K., "Assessment of Rock Pressure for Tunnels in the Himalayan Region — A Case History" (2010). International Conferences on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. 1.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icrageesd/05icrageesd/session08/1
Included in
Assessment of Rock Pressure for Tunnels in the Himalayan Region — A Case History
San Diego, California
Since early sixties numerous tunnels had been planned and constructed for hydro-electric power generation in the Himalayan Region of India. The mountain chain is of very recent origin geologically and is believed to be still active tectonically. The geology is complex and tunneling under such circumstances had been a real challenge. It was a tough task to predict the geotechnical behaviour of the tunneling media. Beginning with the classical approach of Terzaghi (1925-46) many rock pressure estimation theories had been evolved for prediction and estimation of rock pressure for designing competent and stable tunnel supports. The author has made an attempt to project real field data, which is rare to find, during a period of over thirty years of his association with the construction of numerous tunnels driven through diverse rock formations. Various theories in vogue for rock pressure assessment yielded different results. An attempt had also been made to reason out the differences. The rock pressure assessment is still a dark area, shaded darker when dealing with weak and very weak rock formations. It is believed that earthquakes affect the surface structures most but the sub surface structures are less affected. Some earthquakes occurring in India support this notion.
