An empirical model for estimating hydraulic conductivity of highly disturbed clastic sedimentary rocks in Taiwan

This paper presents the establishment of an empirical HC model for estimating rock mass hydraulic conductivity of highly disturbed clastic sedimentary rocks in Taiwan using high-resolution borehole acoustic televiewer and double packer hydraulic tests. Four geological parameters including rock quality designation (RQD), depth index (DI), gouge content designation (GCD), and lithology permeability index (LPI) were adopted for establishing the empirical HC model. To verify rationality of the proposed HC model, 22 in-situ hydraulic tests were carried out to measure the hydraulic conductivity of the highly disturbed clastic sedimentary rocks in three boreholes at two different locations in Taiwan. Besides, the model verification using another borehole data with four additional in-situ hydraulic tests from similar clastic sedimentary rocks was also conducted to further verify the feasibility of the proposed empirical HC model. The field results indicated that the rock mass in the study area has a conductivity between the order of 10− 10 m/s and 10− 6 m/s at the depth between 34 m and 275 m below ground surface. Results demonstrate that the empirical HC model may provide a useful tool to predict hydraulic conductivity of the highly disturbed clastic sedimentary rocks in Taiwan based on measured HC-values.