Excavation-induced hydraulic conductivity reduction around a tunnel – Part 2: Verification of proposed method using numerical modeling

During tunnel excavation in a jointed rock mass, significant joint closure takes place in the immediate vicinity of tunnel due to joint effective normal stress increase, and the equivalent hydraulic conductivity is largely reduced within a zone approximately one tunnel-radius thick around the tunnel. A significant pressure drop takes place across this zone, and the actual raise of pore-water pressure in the surrounding rock mass is steeper than that estimated from the analytical solution that considers the jointed rock mass around the tunnel as a homogeneous, isotropic medium. This paper presents a numerical modeling of the mechanical and hydraulic behavior of a jointed rock mass around a tunnel and provides estimates of the groundwater inflow rate to be compared to those estimated from generally used analytical solutions. The numerical analysis results presented here verify the validity of the analytical method described in the Part 1 paper for estimating groundwater inflow rate into a tunnel considering excavation-induced hydraulic conductivity reduction.