Technical Summary of Tunnel Mud Pumping Treatment and a Method of Pressure Reduction by Water Release

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s economy and the increasing demand for resources in various regions, the speed and volume of railway operations are increasing, and diseases such as mud pumping and mud pumping in railway tunnels are becoming more and more serious. Although various construction units have taken diverse measures to rectify the diseases, they often have poor results, repeated rectification, and repeated failure, which consumes a lot of financial and material resources but cannot cure the mud pumping disease, allowing the disease to seriously endanger the driving safety of the line. This paper is based on the long-established loess tunnel base mud pumping disease treatment project in the Lanzhou Railway Bureau of the China Railway. Firstly, the influence of train load, structural fracture, and tunnel drainage systems on the mechanism of disease is expounded. Then, the key technologies and processes of the commonly used disease treatment schemes are sorted out and summarized, and the advantages and disadvantages of the commonly used schemes and the additional drainage tunnel and self-priming pump technology proposed in this paper are compared in detail. The analysis shows that the universally used treatment technology applies to the treatment of local mud pumping disease in the tunnel, and there are shortcomings in these measures for the long-established tunnel. The drainage tunnel and self-priming pump technology can reduce and maintain the small content of groundwater in the surrounding rock of the tunnel basement and can resolve the mud pumping disease of the loess tunnel basement from the root. At present, this technology has been applied to many tunnel projects and has achieved certain comprehensive benefits, which could provide a reference for similar projects.