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ABSTRACT: The geographic, geological and topographic complexities of most poles of development in Co-
lombia, included with the rough tropical climate, make this area susceptible to natural hazards, which are
commonly triggered by the anthropogenic development. Such is the case of debris flows and rock blocks falls
from slopes to the roads, a common phenomenon in many transportation ways in Colombia. In most of these
cases, these hazards have been not mitigated, and they carry out the associated risks to the road users, as also
economic impacts with the closure of some unstable road stretches and environmental impacts by landslides.
This work propones false tunnels as viable solutions to prevent rock-fall impacts (regardless of its type), in-
cluding geometric, construction and numerical modeling aspects.
The mentioned situation within the rough climate A false tunnel is a structure over the road that consti-
conditions that characterizes tropical regions and the tutes a shield against material falling, which is used
geologic complexities immersed in this climate, to evade specially landslides and rock falling, per-
make common to find in some Colombian roads all mitting give the road continuity in their transit. False
kind of geotechnical challenges related to slope sta- tunnel may be constructed with reinforced concrete,
bilization measurements, special those against debris pre- and post-stressed concrete or steel structures
flow and rock blocks falls. (Kishi et al., 2002).
Specially, due to economical deficits and bureau- False tunnels are not considered as stabilizing sys-
cratic reasons, in Colombia it is not common to tems, because its principal function is to avoid
solve these kind of geotechnical problems with effi- and/or retain the material coming from landslides or
cient and definitive measurements; instead, it is rock falling (Betancur, 2007).
common to make the continuously, eternal and tradi-
tional material collection in order to avoid the slope
stability problem, especially those coming from rock
masses.
According to the above mentioned general con-
text, efforts were concentrated to consider false-
tunnels as a feasible solution against the impacts
sourced by rock block falling.
Figure 1 Section across the Medellín – Santa Fé de Anti-
In this article, authors are exposing basic con- oquia road. Typical cross section in mountainous roads, where
cepts and recommendations for the numerical mod-
is common to have small curvature radii and high elevation dif- slab-deck receives all the impact energy of the block
ferences
rocks.
In their basic configuration of a false tunnel, it
consists on a shock-absorbing structure of selected
compacted granular material and reinforced with
geo-synthetics or other elements as expanded polys-
tyrene or used tires. It has also a foundation structure
(could be of steel or reinforced concrete), a support
structure and a confinement structure (natural or ar-
tificial) (Fig. 2).
3 FALSE TUNNELS IN COLOMBIA Figure 3 False tunnels in the Bogotá – Villavicencio road, a)
K64+200 and b) K56+000
Only since the nineties of the last century, false tun-
nels have been implemented in Colombia as a solu- Another false tunnel that enhances among the oth-
tion for this problem, this because landslides near ers is one at the Bucaramanga - Barrancabermeja
principal roads have been recognized as critical road (Fig. 4) at the known site of Peña de San Pab-
emergencies for the country. In that time, one ob- lo. It consists on an arcade structure with a shock-
served an evident backward about false tunnel re- absorbing roof to support specially rock blocks,
lated knowledge and technology if one compares which are common in the site. Figure 5 shows the
with the state of the art and practice of countries as Peña de San Pablo site rock fall problems at the Bu-
Japan and Swiss; especially in themes about the caramanga - Barrancabermeja road before the con-
concepts, experience, design, construction and oper- struction of the false tunnel.
ation.
The most two distinguished false tunnels found in
mountainous roads in Colombia are those at the Vil-
lavicencio – Bogotá road. The first one (Fig. 3a) has
120 m of longitude, consist on a roof of galvanized
steel, confined by a retaining structure with but-
tresses in reinforced concrete and anchored to the
rock mass. Between the concrete retaining structure
and steel structure, and between this last one and the
rock mass, the spaces were filled with selected ma-
terial. This makes a combined structure of earth,
steel and concrete materials. The second false tunnel
at this road (Fig. 3b) has a longitude of 40 m. It has
an arcade concrete structure with a slab deck. This Figure 4 False tunnel in the Peña de San Pablo site at the
false tunnel does not have a shock-absorbing, so the Bucaramanga - Barrancabermeja road
Finally, it is important to stand out the actual con- The impact forces that act on the false tunnel dur-
struction of the twin false tunnels in the Villeta – ing the fall of rock blocks are related with the inte-
Bogotá road, in the site named El Cune. They are raction of the materials involved. Pre-stressed con-
constructed with pre-fabricated concrete segments crete structures and reinforced concrete have high
that constitute the tunnel vaults. Figure 6 shows the stiffness, contrary to steel framing, whose mechan-
rock mass landslide problem which has been present isms of impact energy dissipation make them less
for around 20 years. likely to break (Yoshida et al., 2007).