1 TUNNEL PORTAL DESIGN

1.1 PORTAL DESIGN

The portal excavation is defined as excavation of the portal area up to the excavation cut,
where tunneling work commence. The portal excavation extends to include both the main and
escape tunnel portal.

Since, the long-term slope stability and large portal excavation can typically only be achieved
by expensive supporting measures, the portal excavation should be kept as small as possible.

The ‘excavation cut ‘is defined as the front wall of the portal excavation where tunneling work
commence.

Portal excavation up to the excavation cut is carried out in horizontal layers with the excavated
slope supported concurrently with wire mesh, shotcrete as a binding layer and erosion
protection and grouted or self-boring rock bolts. The height of the horizontal layer in loose
ground and poor rock should not exceed 2m, so that the exposed ground does not loosen
neither due to weathering nor over stressing. By this method the necessary measures are
minimized.

Before construction of the shotcrete portal structure and after shotcreting of the exaction cut,
advance support of the first round to be tunneled using fore poling bars or pipes is inserted.
The fore poling is intended to prevent over break, collapse and material inflow for the first
excavation round.

Slope support with shotcrete thickness of at least 20 cm can be considered as permanent. For
aesthetic consideration the excavated slope in the portal area can be covered by stone facia,
Green (vegetative) facia or concrete wall.

A drainage channel is foreseen at the top of the excavation cut to prevent water flowing down
the cut. It is also advisable to place a fence above the excavated slope to prevent people or
animal falling into the excavated portal area.

1.1.1 Portal Structure

The portal structure during construction is used to define the required tunnel profile before the
underground tunneling commences and also to protect from falling material from the slope
above the portal. The profile of the tunnel section is therefore extended above ground using
open-cut-methods.

Steel arch element for profile control are placed at interval of approx.1 m on a concrete slab.
Outer and inner layers of reinforcing steel are then hung on the steel arch element, forming a
steel cage. The outer layer of reinforcement is overlain with a fleece material, so that the steel
cage is closed to the outside. A shotcrete layer is applied to the steel cage so that all steel
element is sufficiently covered. By this method a permanent tunnel shell has been constructed
and underground tunneling work can commence.

Figure 1 Left: Steel arches for profile control of a long portal structure; Right: shotcreting of a
short portal structure

1.2 PORTAL SLOPE FAILURE MODES

There are two different types of slope instability:

 One that is driven by geological structure, i.e. Orientation and characteristics of the
joint, bedding and fault that occur behind slope face.
 Other in which the stress in rock exceed the rock strength, particularly in weak rock.

For the protection of slope at portal location different types of support composed by grouted
rock bolts, dowel, sprayed concrete, and drapery system with rock anchor shall be used.
1.3 SLOPE PROTECTION DESIGN CRITERIA FOR PORTAL

Systematic approach can be followed while design of the portal slope:

 Design data
 Design Method
 Stabilization Measures

Design Data:
For design data the inputs required are geological data, geotechnical data and ground water
condition.
Design Method:
There are two broad groups of method for design of slopes:

 Limit equilibrium analysis results in calculation of factor of safety and different

procedures are used for plane, wedge, circular and toppling failure. This type of failure
being dependent on slope geology.
 Numerical analysis estimates values of stress and strain developed at various location
of the slopes and stability is evaluated by comparison of stress in slope with rock
strength.

Planar Failure:
In planar failure (Figure 1.6), the mass progresses out or down and out along a more or less
planar or gently undulating surface.

Figure 2 Planner Failure

Circular or rotational failure:

Rotational failures are little-deformed slumps, which slides along a surface of rupture that is
curved concavely upward. In slumps, the movement is more or less rotational about an axis
that is parallel to the slope.
 Figure 3 Rotational Failure

Wedge Failure:
The possibility of wedge failure exists where two discontinuities strike obliquely across the
slope face and their line of intersection daylights in the slope face.

Figure 4 Wedge Failure

Toppling failure:
Toppling failure occurs when the weight vector of a block of rock resting on an inclined plane
falls outside the base of the block. This type of failure may occur in undercutting beds.
 Figure 5 Toppling failure mode

Stabilization Measures:

The final stage compromises of three important point:

Excavation of slopes, slope stabilization measures and monitoring of slope movement.

1.4 ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF SLOPES SUPPORT

The Stability analysis will be first carried out in slide software SLIDE incorporates the most
widely used and accepted limit- equilibrium approaches based on the method of slices.

Figure 6 THE SHAPE OF TYPICAL CIRCULAR SLIDING SURFACES WITH THE DETAIL OF FORCES ON
SLICE

The stability analysis is carried out considering contribution of:

  Dead mass of the sliding material – the weight of the material is considered in the
software with respect to the unit weight of the material. Due to the small influence of
the sprayed concrete and reinforcement weight with respect to the overall weight of
the sloping ground body the weight of the support structure is neglected in the
analyses.

 Ground water – the ground water tables are taken as per borehole data at the portal
locations.

 Seismic load developed at extreme loading conditions.

For the most critical slope section at the portal, the potential for total global slope failure shall
be investigated by considering circular failure mechanism. The global stability analysis will be
carried out in both static loading condition and seismic loading conditions with the latter case
adopting a pseudo-static approach of analysis.

Figure 1-7 Slope analysis in SLIDE

The stage wise global stability analysis for slopes will be carried out for critical section using
RS2 software. First the critical section will be analyzed without any support system. The
results of the analysis are expressed as a factor of safety which is defined as the ratio of
available shear strength to the shear stresses developed on the sliding plane. If FOS of
unsupported slope is less than desired, suitable support system shall be used and it will be
re-analyzed to achieve desired FOS. In global stability analysis of cut-slope stage wise
analysis first up to 20 to 30m from top excavation level shall be carried out after that analysis
for final excavation up to bottom level will be carried out, although support requirement for
analysis of final stage will govern.

The Shear Strength Reduction option in RS2 allows you to automatically perform a finite
element slope stability analysis and compute a critical strength reduction factor for the
model. The critical strength reduction factor is equivalent to the "safety factor" of the slope.

Figure 8 Slope Stability analysis in RS2 with SRF method.

The overall factor of safety for slope is determined for two different load combinations, the
normal load combination (no earthquake load) and the exceptional load combination
considering the earthquake load case. The desired factor of safety for each load combination
is given in as follows:

General combination (no earthquake considered): 1.50

Exceptional combination (earthquake considered): 1.20

1.5 SLOPE PROTECTION SCHEME

Following are the component of Slope Protection scheme

1.5.1 Shotcrete
Shotcrete or sprayed concrete is concrete, or mortar conveyed through hose pneumatically
projected with high velocity onto the surface. Shotcrete can be used with rock anchor.

1.5.2 Grouted dowel or rock bolt

Grouted dowel or rock bolt are long anchor, for stabilizing rock excavation. It shall be used in
combination with drapery or shotcrete.
1.5.3 Soil Nail
Soil nail walls consists of installing passive reinforcement (i.e., no post-tensioning) in existing
ground by installing closely spaced steel bars or sections (i.e., nails) and placing a front face
support.

1.5.4 Anchor Plate

For rock anchor plate of Mild steel Fe 500 of size 150 mm x150 mm x 8 mm shall be used,
which adequate for 25 mm diameter rock bolts but its adequacy will be verified at site during
pull out test of rock bolts.

1.5.5 Wire mesh

The wire mesh will be used to capture falling of small chunks of rock mass during
excavation, wherever required. This will be used along with shotcrete of adequate thickness.
Grade of wire mesh will be fe500, thickness of wire mesh will of 4 mm and grid to grid
spacing will be 100 mm x100 mmx5mm.

1.5.6 Drapery System

Steel woven wire mesh is used as drapery system to prevent rock and debris from falling
onto road and railway. The steel wire mesh shall withstand the force of falling rock without
unravelling in the event of wire breakage. Encapsulating vegetative soil pocket under the
drapery system permits the establishment of vegetation if condition permit. It is used in
combination of top anchor, bottom anchor and surface anchor.

Figure 9 Drapery system used for Slope protection