Underground Road Research Articles

Study on 3D Geological Model of Highway Tunnels Modeling Method

Geology is the base for highways and tunnels construction. With the fast development of national highway construction, highway tunnel construction project are more and more complex. The completeness and accuracy are essential for the planning, design and construction of projects, while the ground information is quite poor in systematic, reliable and timely aspects. Therefore, the development of underground road tunnels, and the implementation of informationized spatial information management is urgent for highway construction. 3D geological tunnel model is intuitive, high efficient and convenience which greatly facilitates the maintenance and security of highway tunnels construction and it will be the trend for the future highway tunnel development.

How about the IAQ in Subway Environment and Its Management?

The spatial limitations of urban environments in general lead to invention and design of a wide range of underground transportation systems such as subways, underground roads and paths, etc. Among them, the application of subway systems in metropolitan cities is most commonly observed to ease those confronted difficulties on this purpose. It in turn leaves passengers and workers to be exposed to indoor air potentially polluted by various sources existing in this underground environment. Specifically when considering the IAQ in a subway station, there exist many IAQ-related parameters to be counted either as individual or as integrated exposures. In this study, a model system has been developed to manage the general IAQ in a subway stat-ion. Field survey and CO₂ measurements were initially conducted to analyze and understand the relation-ship between the indoor and outdoor air quality while considering the internal pollution sources such as passengers, subway trains, etc. The measurement data were then employed for the model development with other static information. For the model development, the algorithm of simple continuity was built and applied to model the subway IAQ concern-ed. In this paper, the recent updated draft version of model developed will be reported and demonstrated.

‘Slicing Through Space’

Providing for the movement of people and things is an inevitable and increasingly important element of urban governance. Urban life in Australian cities has been physically structured around the private motor vehicle, and transport policies have historically focused on the public funding of large-scale public roadways. There is no better example of this approach to transport planning than in Southeast Queensland, where government departments associated with responsibilities for road infrastructure have traditionally wielded enormous power, and have repeatedly attempted to impose large-scale technological solutions for transport problems without regard for their wider impacts on urban life. Despite an emerging awareness of the need to reduce carbon emissions by establishing alternative models of urban mobility, local authorities in Brisbane have recently followed in this well- established tradition by embarking on an ambitious expansion of river crossings and underground road tunnels as a way to increase the capacity of private vehicular flows through the inner city. This article is an exploration of the philosophical framework ‘driving’ these political decisions and their inevitable imposition of new spatio-temporal laws on Brisbane’s inhabitants. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s account of the relationship between the production of space and social rhythms, it is argued that these transport planning decisions and the way they govern mobility will reproduce the destructive effects of abstraction on both space and the rhythms of the city.

High prevalence of respiratory symptoms among workers in the development section of a manually operated coal mine in a developing country: A cross sectional study

BackgroundFew studies of miners have been carried out in African countries; most are from South Africa, where the working conditions are assumed to be better than in the rest of Africa. Several studies have focused on respiratory disorders among miners, but development workers responsible for creating underground road ways have not been studied explicitly. This is the first study assessing the associations between exposure to dust and quartz and respiratory symptoms among coal mine workers in a manually operated coal mine in Tanzania, focusing on development workers, as they have the highest exposure to coal dust.MethodsA cross-sectional study was carried out among 250 production workers from a coal mine. Interviews were performed using modified standardized questionnaires to elicit information on occupational history, demographics, smoking habits and acute and chronic respiratory symptoms. The relationships between current dust exposure as well as cumulative respirable dust and quartz and symptoms were studied by group comparisons as well as logistic regression.ResultsWorkers from the development group had the highest dust exposure, with arithmetic mean of 10.3 mg/m3 for current respirable dust and 1.268 mg/m3 for quartz. Analogous exposure results for mine workers were 0.66 mg/m3 and 0.03 mg/m3, respectively; and for other development workers were 0.88 mg/m3 and 0.10 mg/m3, respectively.The workers from the development section had significantly higher prevalence of the acute symptoms of dry cough (45.7%), breathlessness (34.8%) and blocked nose (23.9%). In addition, development workers had significantly more chronic symptoms of breathlessness (17.0%) than the mine workers (6.4%) and the other production workers (2.4%). The highest decile of cumulative exposure to respirable dust was significantly associated with cough (OR = 2.91, 95% CI 1.06, 7.97) as were cumulative exposure to quartz and cough (OR = 2.87, CI 1.05, 7.88), compared with the reference consisting of the group of workers with the lowest quartile of the respective cumulative exposure.ConclusionThe development workers in a coal mine had more acute and chronic respiratory symptoms than the mine and the other production workers. In addition, there was an association between high cumulative coal dust and respiratory symptoms.

VR analysis of multi-vehicle accidents in underground urban expressway

Underground urban expressways which have great potential to settle many existing transportation-related problems may pose unknown risks regarding traffic safety. Vehicle accident in tunnel can more seriously damage road infrastructure and human life than outside roads because of its closed space especially in deep underground road. Therefore, it is important to consider the safety countermeasure for preventing not only a single-vehicle accident but also multi-vehicle accidents which are more damaging. We conducted a unique driving experiment with virtual reality (VR) where the multiple subjects can drive simultaneously in the same roadway space. With this experiment, we collected the microscopic driving data of multi-vehicle accidents that originated in a single-vehicle accident. The results of data analysis reveal some important factors causing the occurrence of multi-vehicle accidents.

Design and construction of enlarging shield tunnel sections of large dimensional shield tunnels for the non-open-cut method

The use of the enlarging method for large dimensional shield tunnel construction is essential in the building of branch connections and ramps, particularly when constructing underground roads in narrow urban areas. In this paper, the non-open-cut method, which excavates underground, used in The Central Circular Shinjuku Route of Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway is reported. This paper describes the construction of the cut and open of a part of steel segments installed in two parallel large dimensional shield tunnels over a total length of 100 m using the non-open-cut method. The pipe roofing method was adopted for three reasons: the excavation depth is relatively shallow; the location is just beneath a trunk road intersection; and important utilities are laid underground at various locations. And, new construction methods such as use of pre-strutting, which involves the placement of preceding struts using pipe-jacking in order to stabilize the tunnels and to prevent deformation, as well as preloading to reduce settlement of roof pipes are employed. Furthermore, in order to ensure safety during the construction work and to reduce adverse environmental effects such as ground settlement, various types of behavior prediction analysis have been carried out and monitoring-feed backing to construction are performed as construction continues. (A) This paper was presented at Safety in the underground space - Proceedings of the ITA-AITES 2006 World Tunnel Congress and the 32nd ITA General Assembly, Seoul, Korea, 22-27 April 2006. For the covering abstract see ITRD E129148. “Reprinted with permission from Elsevier”.

Studies for site preparation for ITER construction

Abstract The implantation of a nuclear facility, such as ITER (about 20 buildings on 40 ha) requires many preparatory studies, particularly with respect to underground characteristics, topography, layout, deforestation, excavations, networks, fences and roads and impact of seismic hazard on design. This paper presents the main results of these studies, carried out within the European ITER Site Studies Framework. A dedicated paper [O. Guerin, B. Coururier, A. Maas, Transport, logistics and packaging of ITER components, 23rd SOFT, 2004, Venice, Italy] in the conference deals with the transport studies. To choose the site for ITER implantation, detailed geological, hydrogeological and geophysical investigations have been carried out. Taking into account the meteorological data (particularly the main wind direction), topography, access, electrical supply, fluid needs and constraints (gravity systems), buildings and roads have been implemented.

Design and construction of the deepest diaphragm walls in Cairo

El-Azhar Road tunnels project in Cairo is the first urban underground road tunnel in Africa. It has four ventilation stations along 2.7 km of the tunnels route. The location of the third station was positioned at Port Said street, west of an existing flyover and CWO sewer tunnel. This station was the deepest one due to the crossing of the road tunnels under the sewer tunnel. The Port Said ventilation shaft chalked up two world records for: deepest 87.3 m retaining wall in urban setting; 1.5 m thick, built in separate panels. While the station was 37.3 m deep, Hydro-phrase machine, has been used for the construction of these diaphragm panels. To reduce the lateral deformations of the wall, RC horizontal slabs were adopted at different levels to be a monolithic structure. The ground deformations associated with the construction of the diaphragm walls of the underground stations can be divided into two components, one due to excavation and installation of the diaphragm walls and the other due to wall movements. These deformations are functions of many factors such as depth and shape of walls, soil properties, depth of excavation around the walls, type and stiffness of supporting system, surrounding structures, surcharge loads and time of construction. The comparison of the calculation and monitoring results of diaphragm walls have shown that the traditional methods are not compatible with the field measurements. The reaction modulus relating the horizontal displacements to the soil pressure in the linear range is inconvenient, as it is not a measurable geotechnical parameter and its determination still divides the specialists. Moreover, it does not describe the arching effect caused by the differential deformations of the surrounding soil. Some numerical codes that depend on this coefficient in the analyses do not have realization results and often marked by divergences with in situ measurements. A realistic numerical modelling of the deepest diaphragm walls is considered for evaluating the effect of construction sequence and the associated changes in the characteristics of the surrounding ground. This finite element modelling avoids the main drawbacks that usually appear in empirical or statical design methods. The main shortcomings that usually appear in these analyses are: the simulation of the wall thickness and wall shape; the strength of ground-structure interface; the construction phases; the hydraulic conditions and the dewatering of the excavation. The proposed procedures to simulate the diaphragm walls and the deep excavation of the ventilation station using FE method are presented in numerical example with full scale. The results of the analysis proved the ability of the proposed model to predict successfully the behaviour of interaction between the diaphragm walls and deep excavation of the shaft with retaining horizontal slabs and struts in soft ground. The results also confirmed the need for realistic simulation of concrete elements, combined action and establishment of construction procedure in the numerical model. It is very important to note that there was a very good agreement between the field measurements and those obtained by the proposed numerical modeling. The values of the internal forces from the analysis were lower than those of the contractor's analysis due to shortcomings in the contractor's analysis. However, the contractor analysis is suitable to cover the construction risk in this project. The back-analysis of this deep excavation using FE Method is required to cover the main drawbacks in the analysis and for choosing the soil parameters in major projects. (A). Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124500.

Design challenges of the cross city tunnel

The Cross City Tunnel Project provides Sydney, Australia with almost 6 km of new underground road network in the heart of the Central Business District. The project aims to provide Sydney commuters with up to a 20 min time saving in cross city travel, achieved with the bypassing of some 18 sets of traffic lights. The project alignment is complex, involving six separate tunnels, three underground y-junctions, six crossover slabs and a network of construction and egress cross passages and shafts. Beneath William Street, Sydney, all six tunnels run parallel for some 200 m at different levels below the existing surface. The route runs adjacent to or below many major buildings, existing and future rail tunnels, existing viaducts, road tunnels and many major services. The Cross City Tunnel is being constructed by Baulderstone Hornibrook Bilfinger Berger JV (BHBB) on behalf of the Cross City Motorway (CCM) consortium. CW-DC Pty Ltd (a fully owned subsidiary of Connell Wagner Pty Ltd) is the principal civil designer for BHBB. The construction phase of the project commenced in early 2003 and is programmed to finish in December 2005. The tunnel alignment has been achieved with strong dependence on 3D road design packages. Alignment constraints include land acquisition and proximity to existing tunnels, basements and other infrastructure as well as maintaining acceptable separation between adjacent tunnels in the project. The alignment incorporates all existing road networks into the new scheme. The geotechnical difficulties to overcome include the high horizontal stress field within the Sydney basin, numerous fault and shear zones and palaeochannels that all six tunnels pass. The design includes the incorporation of flat roof and conventional arched hard rock tunnelling methods. The challenges include design of large span tunnels in close proximity to existing tunnels and large building basements, incorporation of a by-pass ventilation system, design of reinforced concrete cross over slabs within the tunnel for future rail and existing road tunnels and detailed settlement predictions for the existing buildings, tunnels, structures and services. The latter includes a detailed assessment on the impact to over 200 buildings along the alignment, many in excess of 20 storeys. (A). Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. For the covering abstract see ITRD E124500.

Beyond the River: The Untold Story of the Heroes of the Underground Railroad. By Ann Hagedorn. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. 333 pp. $25.00, isbn 0-684-87065-7.)

The history of escaping slaves has always involved the difficult task of separating fact from fiction. The journalist Ann Hagedorn enters this challenging field with impressive determination and the finely honed skills of a professional reporter. She literally relocated to Ripley, Ohio, a place that spawned a number of Underground Railroad legends, and then diligently combed through the local archives. She conducted the grunt work of historical research and has produced an inspiring testament to the allure of investigating the past. She did not, however, produce an interpretive gem. Hagedorn's persistent boosterism often undermines her narrative judgments. In her account, Ripley and the local abolitionist John Rankin always seem to be at the epicenter of a national movement that she never quite defines or explains. Hagedorn performs a service by detailing Rankin's mostly forgotten story, but she fails to provide the context demanded by her sometimes breathless claims. The author takes at face value, for example, the dubious tale of how the Underground Railroad supposedly got its name, attributing the origins to an escaping slave who disappeared near Ripley, leaving a bewildered slave catcher to wonder if there was “an underground road” there (pp. 12, 60).

A novel approach to propagation prediction in confined and diffracting rough surfaces

AbstractModern wireless systems operating in the millimetre waves bands are now to be used in complex confined media such as mining environment. System designs require that multipath, fading and diffraction effects be accounted for in a suitable model. This paper presents a new propagation prediction method that can be used in mine corridors, buildings, underground roads, galleries with rough surfaces and others complex sub‐surface installations. A method named cascade impedance method (CIM) is used in combination with the segmental statistic method (SSM) in mine tunnels having considerable wall roughness and bending forms. Two (2D)‐ and three (3D)‐dimensional profiles of the radio waves are simulated and compared with available measurements at 2.45 and 18 GHz. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Design of bored tunnel linings for Singapore MRT North East Line C706

The northern section of the bored tunnels of Contract C706 of the Singapore MRT North East Line is located in varying soil conditions ranging from cemented Old Alluvium to very soft marine clay. The bored tunnels will run along Race Course Road, underneath a residential area underpassing several religious temples. The tubes will be constructed by earth pressure balanced shield machines. The paper is presenting the key approaches adopted for the design of the tunnel lining, the assessment of ground movements under the particular circumstances as well as the basic design considerations for the intersection of MRT tunnels with the future tunnels of the Singapore Underground Road System (SURS). In this context, the effect of water pressures in terms of sectional lining forces was studied in detail. A design chart has been developed to determine the sectional forces due to the water pressure load and in relation to the subgrade reaction modulus. An approach to consider the influence of the second tunnel has been developed and its presented in this paper.

Tunnelling projects in Singapore: an overview

The introduction reviews the tunnelling carried out in Singapore since the early eighties. Between 1983 and 1990, Phases 1 and 2 of the mass rapid transit system were constructed. These included some 20 km of bored and cut and cover tunnels together with 18 underground stations. Some particular points of interest in this massive project are briefly commented upon. Reference is also made to other underground or underwater schemes undertaken during this period such as the proposed large caverns project and the submerged tunnel to Pulau Seraya. A description of the subsurface works, now under construction in Singapore, follows. This includes an all underground North-East railway line, 20 km long with 16 stations. At a budget of US$3 billion, this is a major civil engineering undertaking. Another project is the extension of the railway to Changi Airport which involves 3.5 km of twin tube tunnelling together with a major underground station which is fully integrated into the airport terminals. An ongoing programme of further major railway extensions over the next 10 to 15 years is in place and an outline is given of some of the most important underground sectors. Other proposed projects such as the underground roads system and the deep level sewers are briefly described. Together they demonstrate the very significant volume of underground construction scheduled for the next century in Singapore.

The construction of Limehouse link tunnel : K. R. Farley & P. R. Glass, Proceedings — ICE: Transport, 105(3), 1994, pp 153–164

The Limehouse Link tunnel is the largest underground road built by cut-and-cover techniques. The 42-month contract to construct this 250 million pound project required considerable skill and ingenuity of the joint venture team of Balfour Beatty and Fairclough to overcome the many unique challenges presented. Several major delays were encountered, but due to the close co-operation of London Docklands Development Corporation and Gibb the scheme was completed 5 1/2 months ahead of schedule. A large part of this success was due to the introduction of Value Engineering part of the way through the contract. This gave the joint venture team the opportunity to amend the design to suit its methods of construction, and led to the application of novel techniques. This paper briefly summarizes some of the problems encountered and the techniques employed in bringing this complex contract to a successful completion. (A)

DESIGN OF LIMEHOUSE LINK.

Keywords SIR ALEXANDER GIBB ROADS, LINK, DESIGN, FAST TRACK, TENDERS, DOCUMENTATION, SITES, URBAN, CITIES, TUNNELS, UNDERGROUND, JUNCTIONS, DUAL CARRIAGEWAYS, ALIGNMENT, HIGHWAYS, GEOTECHNICS, BOX, VENTILATION, SERVICES, BUILDINGS, CONTRACTS, TENDERS, POST TENDER, CONSTRUCTION, METHODS, GROUNDWATER, CONTROL, LAYOUT, SITE INVESTIGATION, TRANSPORT, DOCKLANDS LIMEHOUSE, THAMES, LONDON, DOCKLANDS UK... Show All

THE LIMEHOUSE LINK.

Keywords LONDON DOCKLANDS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION, LDDC, W A FAIRHURST BALFOUR BEATTY, FAIRCLOUGH, AMEC ROADS, LINK, UNDERGROUND, CUT AND COVER, DESIGN, CONSTRUCTION, GROUND, CONDITIONS, CITIES, RESIDENTIAL, AREAS, VALUE, ENGINEERING, DOCKLANDS, HIGHWAYS, TRANSPORT, GEOLOGY, TUNNELS, SERVICE, ENVIRONMENT, CONTRACTS, ROOFS, SLABS, JOINT VENTURES LIMEHOUSE, DOCKLANDS, LONDON, THAMES, CITY, CANARY WHARF UK... Show All

Preliminary analysis of the dynamic interaction between Norra Länken and a subway tunnel for Stockholm, Sweden

A large infrastructure project called “Ring road Around Stockholm” is presently being planned. A large proportion of the roads will be constructed underground. All kinds of hazardous materials; even explosive gases and liquids, will be allowed to be transported. At Roslagstull, which is located at the northern boundary of the city, five underground road tunnels will cross over an existing subway tunnel, with only about 3 m of rock between them. A scenario in which a truck loaded with explosive gas or liquid starts to leak and then explodes has been proposed by Stockholm's Street and Traffic Administration. Consequently, the effect on rock and the reinforcement surrounding the subway tunnel must be evaluated. This paper presents the results of a study based on two-dimensional distinct element modelling of the rock mass and reinforcement response to a load caused by an exploding truck as described above. Two different assumptions regarding the explosion load have been simulated—namely, static load and fully dynamic load. The study (i) provides general information about the rock mass and reinforcement response for a specific assumption regarding the rock mass conditions, and (ii) compares the results from the two different assumptions regarding the representation of the explosion load. Both unreinforced and reinforced conditions have been modelled for each loading condition (i.e., a total of four models). The results indicate that for the unreinforced models, the differences in the model response are not dramatic when compared to the models with static and dynamic representation of the explosion load. On the other hand, the reinforced models indicate major differences, particularly in the reinforcement response. All numerical analyses presented in this paper were performed using the two-dimensional distinct element code UDEC (Itasca 1992).

Transmission of Vibration into Vibration-Isolated Buildings

Buildings constructed above or near underground and surface roads and railways often include some type of vibration isolation in their foundations. The effectiveness of such isolation measures is usually calculated by treating the building as a rigid block and the resulting mass-spring-damper system as a single-degree-of-freedom oscillator whose characteristic response to vibration is well known. Measurements in isolated buildings show that the truth is far more complicated and that the simple model is of no use whatsoever for predicting vibration levels. In this paper, simple alternative models of buildings will be presented and methods of interpretation of measured vibration spectra in the light of coherence functions for multi-input multi-output systems will be discussed.

LASER—A miracle solution to Paris traffic, or just a gadget?

Abstract Despite modern management and sizable investments, in particular for public transportation facilities, traffic in the greater Paris area involves a loss of almost one billion hours to the user annually. The traveling speed, measured from door to door on a straight line, hardly exceeds 10 km/h on the average in Paris and its suburbs. The LASER (French acronym for “underground regional express automobile link”), designed by French contractor GTM-ENTREPOSE, makes it possible to improve this situation. The LASER project attempts to link the different arrondissements of Paris and the poles of attraction around the capital by means of a privately financed network of high-speed underground roads reserved for passenger cars. The LASER network, the logical complement to the existing road network, will offer the possibility of reaching actual speeds of 60 km/h at all times through the densest zone in the Paris metropolitan region. Capable of safely handling a traffic load equivalent to 20% of the traffic in Paris (including the ring road), the LASER network will relieve surface traffic to the benefit of motorists. All the inhabitants of the greater Paris area should benefit from the project, which will contribute to the economic, commercial and cultural development of the region. If Paris officials decide to grant approval for the LASER project, the Paris metropolis can take the lead in the development of underground facilities that sooner or later will be adopted by major cities in the world, if they are to meet the transportation requirements called for by their economic development.

The performance of longwall gate roads with soft floors

This work stems from field studies of convergence within gate roads leading to three longwall coal faces with different strata and mining conditions. The influence of production on the stability of these roads is illustrated. Empirical time-dependent equations are developed to express and predict the behaviour of the roadways. The particular contribution of the roadway floor and sides to the total closure of the gate roads has also been investigated. The mode of deformation and failure, observed by scanning electron microscopy within the immediate vicinity of underground gate roads, is also described. The application of this analysis is in the planning of production panels in soft tabular deposits, the dimensioning of gate roads, and the stability and performance prediction of such roadways and their supports. Key words: soft mine floors, longwall mining, gate road stability, coal roads, soft underclay floors.