Publication

Review of the TBM performance in blocky rocks with potential face stability issues

Related publications (23)

Supercell Thunderstorms in the Alpine Region - From Weather Radar Observations to Idealized Modeling

The high-impact nature and increasing occurrence of severe weather phenomena pushes forward research on their occurrence and improving our understanding thereof. Supercell thunderstorms are the focus of much severe convective research, as they represent on ...

EPFL2023

The influence of water-saturation on the strength of volcanic rocks and the stability of lava domes

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Michael Heap

The rocks forming a volcanic edifice or dome are typically saturated or partially-saturated with water. However, most experiments aimed at better understanding the mechanical behaviour of volcanic rocks have been performed on dry samples, and therefore mos ...

2023

An analytical approximation of urban heat and dry islands and their impact on convection triggering

Kai Wang, Gabriele Manoli

It is well known that cities increase air and surface temperatures compared to their rural sur-roundings, the so-called urban heat island (UHI) effect. However, the associated changes in at-mospheric humidity (also known as urban dry island, UDI) and conve ...

ELSEVIER2022

A severe hail storm in complex topography in Switzerland-Observations and processes

Nikola Besic, Urs Martin Germann

This paper studies a damaging hail storm that occurred on 6 June 2015 in the complex topography of Switzerland. The storm persisted for several hours and produced large hail resulting in significant damage. Storms of comparable severity occur on average on ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC2018

Analysis and estimation of gripper TBM performances in highly fractured and faulted rocks

Federica Sandrone, Jian Zhao, Erika Paltrinieri

This paper focuses on performance analysis of Tunnel Boring Machine (in particular gripper TBMs) in highly jointed rock masses and fault zones. In order to investigate possible relationships between these difficult excavation conditions and TBM performance ...

Elsevier2016

Spatio-temporal stability of the Kármán vortex street and the effect of confinement

François Gallaire, Saviz Mowlavi, Cristobal Manuel Arratia Martinez

The instability of the Kármán vortex street is revisited under a spatio-temporal perspective that allows the taking into account of the advection of the vortices by the external flow. We analyse a simplified point vortex model and show through numerical si ...

Cambridge University Press2016

Probabilistic simulations of TBM Tunnelling in highly fractured and faulted rocks

Jean-Paul Dudt, Federica Sandrone, Jian Zhao, Erika Paltrinieri

Despite the potential excellent performance of TBMs in favourable ground conditions, the presence of fault zones or heavily jointed rocks represent important geological hazards encountered during tunnel excavation. The effects of these challenging environm ...

Elsevier2016

Stresses and displacements in steel-lined pressure tunnels and shafts in anisotropic rock under quasi-static internal water pressure

Anton Schleiss, Alexandre Jean Pachoud

Steel-lined pressure tunnels and shafts are constructed to convey water from reservoirs to hydroelectric power plants. They are multilayer structures made of a steel liner, a cracked backfill concrete layer, a cracked or loosened near-field rock zone and a ...

Springer Wien2016

Wake flow in a wind farm during a diurnal cycle

Fernando Porté Agel, Mahdi Abkar, Ahmad Sharifi

The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) undergoes substantial changes in its structure and dynamics in the course of a day due to the transient nature of forcing factors such as the surface fluxes of heat and momentum. The non-stationary nature of the mean wi ...

Taylor & Francis2016

Analysis of TBM tunnelling performance in faulted and highly fractured rocks

Erika Paltrinieri

The thesis focuses on the study of the performance of TBMs in highly jointed and faulted rocks. Despite the great production rates recorded in favourable ground conditions, the TBM advance can be significantly slowed down in limiting geological situations ...

EPFL2015

Effects of rock mass anisotropy on deformations and stresses around tunnels during excavation

Anton Schleiss

rock mass where the in situ state of stress is uniform. The rock mass was assumed to behave elastically and two cases were examined: whether the rock mass has an isotropic elastic property or not. A two-dimensional plain strain elastic-plastic Jointed Rock ...

2014

Study on rock mass boreability by TBM penetration test under different in situ stress conditions

Jian Zhao, Lijun Yin

Rock mass boreability is a comprehensive parameter reflecting the interaction between rock mass and a tunnel boring machine (TBM). Many factors including rock mass conditions, TBM specifications and operation parameters influence rock mass boreability. In ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2014

A new model for TBM performance prediction in blocky rock conditions

Jian Zhao, Andrea Delisio

The term "blocky rock conditions" is generally associated with face instabilities in blocky/jointed rock masses. These events are generally promoted by unfavorable rock mass structural conditions, in terms of joint frequency and orientation, and acting str ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2014

HYMEX-SOPI The Field Campaign Dedicated to Heavy Precipitation and Flash Flooding in the Northwestern Mediterranean

Alexis Berne

The Mediterranean region is frequently affected by heavy precipitation events associated with flash floods, landslides, and mudslides that cause hundreds of millions of euros in damages per year and, often, casualties. A major field campaign was devoted to ...

American Meteorological Society2014

Analysis and prediction of TBM performance in blocky rock conditions at the Lotschberg Base Tunnel

Jian Zhao, Andrea Delisio

This paper focuses on the analysis of the TBM performance recorded during the excavation of the Lotschberg Base Tunnel. The southern part of the tunnel was excavated by two gripper TBMs, partly through blocky rock masses at great depth. The jointed nature ...

Elsevier2013

Rock fragmentation mechanism by TBM cutter and TBM tunnelling under stressed grounds

Lijun Yin

With the advance of technology, TBMs are becoming more versatile and TBM tunnelling has become a common tunnelling method. As TBM tunnelling is a special excavation method depending on the interaction between machine and rock mass under a certain geologica ...

EPFL2013

A newly developed soil abrasion testing method for tunnelling using shield machines

Jian Zhao

The importance of the effect of ground abrasivity on the performance of a tunnel boring machine (TBM) is important for many tunnelling projects. In recent years, many abrasivity devices have been developed to measure soil abrasivity for specific conditions ...

Geological Society2013

The structure of the asteroid 4 Vesta as revealed by models of planet-scale collisions

Philippe Gillet

Asteroid 4 Vesta seems to be a major intact protoplanet, with a surface composition similar to that of the HED (howardite-eucrite-diogenite) meteorites(1-4). The southern hemisphere is dominated by a giant impact scar(5), but previous impact models(6-8) ha ...

Nature Publishing Group2013

Monitoring of Steel Lined Pressure Shafts Considering Water-Hammer Wave Signals and Fluid-Structure Interaction

Fadi Hachem

In the past, the safety margin for dynamic water pressure loads in steel-lined pressure tunnels and shafts was considered as acceptable by using conventional design safety factors. Due to high peak energy demands, existing plants are operating nowadays und ...

EPFL2011

NIR spectral trends of HED meteorites: Can we discriminate between the magmatic evolution, mechanical mixing and observation geometry effects?

Philippe Gillet, Pierre Beck

The Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite (HED) suite is a family of differentiated meteorites that provide a unique opportunity to study the differentiation of small bodies. The likely parent-body of this meteorite group, (4) Vesta is presently under study by the D ...

2011