Interaction between anti-shear galleries and surrounding rock in the right-bank slope of Dagangshan hydropower station

Abstract

The right-bank slope of the Dagangshan hydropower station located in Southwest China is a highly unloaded rock slope. Moreover, large-scale natural faults were detected in the slope body; some excavation-induced unloading fractures were discovered at elevations between 1075m and 1146m. Because of poor tectonic stability, the excavation work was suspended in September 2009, and six largescale anti-shear galleries were employed to replace the weak zone in the slope body to reinforce the rightbank slope. In this study, based on microseismicmonitoring technology and a numerical-simulation method, the stabilities of the slope with and without the reinforcement are analysed. An in-situ microseismic-monitoring system is used to obtain quantitative information about the damage location, extent, energy, and magnitude of the rocks. Thus, any potential sliding block in the right-bank slope can be identified. By incorporating the numerical results along with the microseismic-monitoring data, the stress concentration is found to largely occur around the anti-shear galleries, and the seismic deformation near the anti-shear galleries is apparent, particularly at elevations of 1210, 1180, 1150, and 1120m. To understand the interaction mechanism between the anti-shear gallery and the surrounding rock, a 2D simulation of the potential damage process occurring in an anti-shear gallery is performed. The numerical simulation helps in obtaining additional information about the stress distribution and failure-induced stress re-distribution in the vicinity of the anti-shear galleries that cannot be directly observed in the field. Finally, the potential sliding surface of the right-bank slope is numerically obtained, which generally agrees with the spatial distribution of the in-situ monitored microseismic events. The safety factor of the slope reinforced with the anti-shear gallery increases by approximately 36.2%. Both the numerical results and microseismic data show that the anti-shear galleries have a good reinforcement effect.