2003 Volume 52 Issue 5 Pages 505-510
Core disking and tunnel deformation like rockburst have occurred at soft tuffaceous rock masses at a point 220 meters deep from the surface in Iwate Tunnel. The physical properties suggest that these rock masses have the possibility of swelling. The estimated earth pressure affecting a drilling hole is larger than five times the tensile strength of the rocks, which is considered to be a condition to cause core disking. Plate-shaped rock fragments continuously exfoliated like rockburst from the face of this tunnel, and deformation at the wall exhibited plasticity. The magnitude of this tunnel deformation is not influenced by either overburden or physical properties of rock masses, but mainly by geological structure.
