A Study of the evaluation of the excavation damaged zone in the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory, 2; Investigation in the 250 m gallery (Joint research)

Aoyagi, Kazuhei  ; Kubota, Kenji*; Nakata, Eiji*; Suenaga, Hiroshi*; Nohara, Shintaro*

In this study, we performed seismic tomography, seismic refraction survey, resistivity tomography, and hydraulic tests to investigate the hydro-mechanical property of the excavation damaged zone (EDZ) in the 250 m gallery of the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory. As a result of seismic tomography, seismic velocity is significantly decreased within 1 m from the gallery wall. The decrease of seismic velocity is related to the density of fracture induced around the gallery wall as a result of the gallery excavation. Thus the extent of the fractures induced by gallery excavation, i.e., EDZ fractures is clarified to be within 1.0 m from the gallery wall. The enhanced hydraulic conductivity was detected within 0.5 to 1.0 m from the gallery wall on the basis of the result of hydraulic tests. This is almost consistent with the extent of the region that seismic velocity is significantly decreased. Therefore, it is estimated that EDZ fractures induced around the gallery leads to the increase of hydraulic conductivity. In addition, the desaturation zone around the gallery is not induced as a result of resistivity tomography. From these results, the hydro-mechanical property of the EDZ is clarified in detail. Also, the in situ tests and evaluation method applied in this study are appropriate to investigate the EDZ in detail.