GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

www.geo-slope.com

AIR/W Tutorial - Tunneling

1 Introduction
The objective of this illustration is to model the seepage into a tunnel if the tunnel is pressurized with air or is left at atmospheric pressure. The objective of the analysis is to quantify the reduction in water inflow due to application of positive air pressures at the tunnel face. The example is a simple steady state analysis, but adequately demonstrates the coupling of air and water pressure in a 2D flow domain.

Feature highlights

GeoStudio feature highlights include: Simultaneous air flow and water flow in steady state Circular opening regions

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18 17 16 15 14 13 12

Geometry and boundary conditions

Elevation (m)

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32

Distance (m)

The figure above shows model geometry and air boundary conditions applied to the tunnel face and the ground surface. The hydraulic boundary conditions include a total head equal to 16m on both the left and right sides, as well as a potential seepage face on the tunnel walls. The air pressure at the ground surface is atmospheric in both analyses in this file. At the tunnel face, in one analysis the air pressure is 50 kPa and in the other it is zero.

AIR/W Example File: AIR Tutorial Tunneling (pdf) (gsz)

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Material properties

The material properties used in this example are the sample functions for a Silty Clay soil type. The Saturated / Unsaturated model has been used, since it is not known if the soil will de-saturated under the air pressure which, if occurs, will invalidate the Saturated Only model. The three required functions are shown below.
Silty Clay
1.0e-03

Silty Clay
0.50 0.45

1.0e-04

Vol. Water Content (m/m)

X-Conductivity (m/day)

0.40 0.35 0.30 0.25 0.20 0.15

1.0e-05

1.0e-06

1.0e-07

1.0e-08

0.10
1.0e-09 0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

0.05 0.01

0.1

10

100

1000

Matric Suction (kPa)

Matric Suction (kPa)

Silty Clay
1.0e+00 1.0e-01 Air X-Conductivity (m/day) 1.0e-02 1.0e-03 1.0e-04 1.0e-05 1.0e-06 1.0e-07 1.0e-08 1.0e-09 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

Degree of Saturation

Discussion of results

The following two images show the location of the zero air content isoline for the steady state solution. Also in the figure are the water flow and air flow vectors. In the analysis with atmospheric pressure at the tunnel face and ground surface, there is, in effect, no air flow. Technically, this is not true, as there is a density component of air flow based on the elevation difference between the tunnel and ground surface. However, the air velocity is so small relative to the water velocity that it was decided to turn off viewing of the air velocity vectors for this analysis. For the case where there is significant air and water flow, both vectors for air and water are displayed.

AIR/W Example File: AIR Tutorial Tunneling (pdf) (gsz)

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GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

www.geo-slope.com

18 17 16 15 14 13 12

Elevation (m)

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32

Distance (m)

Figure 5-1 Air and water flow with 50 kPa air pressure in tunnel
18 17 16 15 14 13 12

Elevation (m)

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32

Distance (m)

Figure 5-2 Water flow with atmospheric air pressure in tunnel

AIR/W Example File: AIR Tutorial Tunneling (pdf) (gsz)

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GEO-SLOPE International Ltd, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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The next issue to consider is the amount of air and water flow into the tunnel in each case. The easiest way to quantify this in a steady state model is to use a drawn flux section around the tunnel opening as shown below.

For the case where there is no added air pressure in the tunnel, the water flow across this flux section is 0.01472 m3/day, as shown below on the left. For the air pressure case, the value is 0.00854 m3/day, which is about a 50% reduction.

0.01472 m/day

0 .0 0 8 5

421 m

/day

This example demonstrates the possible application of AIR/W to a simple tunneling project. The values of reduction in water inflow are, of course, heavily dependent on the material properties and are only sample values here.

AIR/W Example File: AIR Tutorial Tunneling (pdf) (gsz)

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