A Study of the regional stress and the stress state in the galleries of the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory

Aoyagi, Kazuhei  ; Tsusaka, Kimikazu; Tokiwa, Tetsuya; Kondo, Keiji; Inagaki, Daisuke; Kato, Harumi*

In a high-level radioactive waste disposal, initial stress state is important for designing support and layout of repository. Based on the background, objectives of this paper is to investigate the state of regional stress in detail and change of initial stress state along construction of the Underground Research Laboratory (URL). Hydraulic fracturing tests and observation of the borehole breakouts through borehole televiewer logging have been conducted in the boreholes around the Horonobe URL and in the galleries of the URL. As a result, the values of the stress measured in the boreholes around the URL increased along depth and the orientations of the maximum horizontal stress were different between a map scale fault. In addition, values of initial stresses measured in the galleries were less than those of boreholes around the URL and orientation of the maximum horizontal stress were different in each depth of the gallery. These results suggest that measurements of the stress in the galleries are important for modification of the layout designed before construction of the URL.