Design and verification of support system for underground excavations under anisotropic stress conditions

Motoshima, Takayuki*; Fujita, Tomoo ; Aoyagi, Kazuhei  ; Shirase, Mitsuyasu*; Nago, Makito*

This study addresses and demonstrates the economic support design scheme considering in-situ stress orientation and excavation direction, based on the work carried out in the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory (URL) project. In the URL, the tunnel at the 350 m level is laid out in a loop. In construction of a loop tunnel in a rock mass under anisotropic in situ stress conditions, the in situ stress orientation and the excavation direction are expected to affect the convergence associated with the excavation-induced stress redistribution. This suggests that it is possible to achieve economic optimization by selecting a tunnel layout, in which only a small displacement and stress are allowed, based on in-situ stress orientation obtained from the surface investigation. Therefore, in this study, a comparison between the predicted convergence used for the support design and the measured convergence during excavation was conducted in order to verify the validity of the convergence predicted from the orientation and magnitude of the in-situ stress obtained from the surface based investigation. The comparison results indicated a positive correlation between the predicted and the measured convergence. These results suggest the validity and reliability of the in-situ stress obtained from the surface investigation and the support design using the in situ stress data.