Estimation of net Penetration Rate and Thrust Force of a Large Diameter Shielded TBM in Soil

C. Park, C. Park, J. H. Synn Rock Engineering Division, Korea Institute of Geosceince and Mineral Resources S. D. Lee Geotechnical Engineering Research Group, Korea Highway Corporation

ABSTRACT: Net penetration rate of the shielded TBM is analyzed in 443 m length of urban subway tunnel in soil layer. Optimal level of thrust as well as net penetration rate varies with ground conditions. Excessive force can cause the machine vibration in a large diameter shielded TBM, which will result in the troubles of operation and the low rate of advancing. In this tunnel, 1300~1800 ton of thrust is the optimum in soil containing small scale corestones, while around 1100 ton in soil with larger ones. Practical data of the net penetration rate is estimated to show the linear relation to thrust with R2 = 0.78 (R being the coefficient of determination). The optimal levels and the linear relationship of net penetration rate and thrust will be expected an index in operation of the large diameter shielded TBM in soil layer. 1. INTRODUCTION Many kinds of TBM have been operating for more than two decades and then recently, a large diameter shielded TBM has been applied first in Korea. The excavation of No. 1 tunnel in Kwangju urban subway was completed in 2001 with a 7.4m diameter shielded TBM. This tunnel has the total length of 527m, including rock layers of 84m. No. 2 tunnel running parallel with No. 1 is now being excavated with fewer difficulties through the analysis of operational conditions in the previous No. 1 tunnel. Advancing rate of TBM depends on several factors of geotechnical characteristics, machine specifications and working conditions. Net penetration rate will be defined with less number of affecting factors than advancing rate. In this report, the net penetration rate is discussed on tunnelling in soil layers in No. 1 tunnel for 6 months. The relation- ship between net penetration rate and thrust is investigated in consideration of the characteristics of soil layers. EPB type shielded TBM of which main specifications are listed in Table 1, has been used in the project. Maximum thrust force and rotational speed are designed 5040 ton and 2.5 RPM separately. Hybrid cutter systems have been designed in order to excavate the soil and the rock layers without changing the cutterhead. Disk cutters of 14" size would carry out the effective performance in rock while chisel bit would cut the soil layer. Table 1. Main specification of running TBM General specification EPB shield Model type Cut diameter for soil 7,420 mm Bore diameter for rock 7,398 mm 7,380 mm Shield diameter 8,330 mm Shield length Total electric power 2,000 kW Transformer capacity 4500 kVA = 2,000 kW Cutterhead operation Cutting head power Rotational speed Maximum torque Shield thrust cylinder Number and stroke Propelling speed Max. thrust Chisel bit for soil Number Width 11 ea132 kW 2.5 RPM max. 1,010 t m (9,898 kN m) 24 ea, and 1,700 mm 100 mm/min 5,040 ton (49,393 kN) 247 ea 70 mm and 90 mm

Disk cutter for rock Number and diameter 41 ea and 355 mm (14") Bearing No. 32221 (C 90=68.8 kN)

2. GEOLOGY Total tunnelling alignment can be divided into two groups as the soil and the rock layer as shown in Figure 1. Precambrian granitic gneiss, Jurassic granite and Cretaceous andesite are commonly situated as bed rocks in this tunnel area. And Quaternary alluvium mainly composed of gravel, sand and clay covers the rocks in unconformity with 10~20 m thickness. Distributed gravel transferred from east mountain as pieces of weathered andesite and rhyolite has various sizes, which has caused many difficulties of TBM operation. Soil layer consists of reclaimed, deposit and residual ones. When a road and an underground shopping center was built, reclaimed stratum with 1.3~3.0m thickness was artificially filled at the top of soil. This layer consists of silt and fine or coarse grained sandy gravel with partially existing boulder. As grain size distribution is poor, it can be classified as GP(GM at one borehole BH-14) and has a dark brown color. N value by standard penetration tests was resulted in 25~47, but it also has a highly dense property with 50/ 8 cm at BH-12.

Deposit soil layer closing by Kwang ju river is distributed under reclaimed soil layer with 3.7~7.3m thickness which has formed by transportation and deposition activities of stream water. Its components are similar to reclaimed soil layer partially with round boulder or gravel of andesite and rhyolite etc. This can be classified as GM with silt and GP at BH-12 and BH-15. This has also a brown or dark brown color and a dense or very dense property with N value of 12~50 in 15 tests and 50/ 26~2cm in 6 tests. Residual soil layer is the stratum formed by weathering of mother rocks, so its composition is to maintain but with loss of the mechanical characteristics. This layer is distributed under the residual soil layer with 1.5 10.6m thickness, and is classified as SM according to USDS with grained sand and silt. This has a dark or light brown color and also a dense or very dense property with N value of 27~50/ 16cm in 19 SPT. Permeability test carried out only in this residual layer resulted in 1.7~5.5 10-4 cm/sec. The results of field and laboratory tests are listed in Table 2. The small and large scale boulders were encountered

Figure 1. Geologic sectors of TBM tunnel Table 2. Geotechnical characteristics of soil layers Reclaimed Deposit soil Class soil layer (GP) layer (GM) N value
d t

Residual soil layer (ML) 27~50/25 1.4~1.6 1.5~2.0 31~34 10.3~25.3 44~60 0.3~0.4

Residual soil layer (SM) 40~50/16 1.5~1.7 1.7~2.1 32~35 10.3~25.3 35~60 0.3~0.4

25~50/8 1.8~2.0 1.9~2.1 28~39 13.9~14.4 11~60 0.3~0.4

12~50/2 1.8~2.0 1.9~2.1 28~39 10.1~20.0 24~60 0.3~0.4

Internal Friction Angle () Natural Water Content (%) Young's Modulus (MPa) Poisson's Ratio

while tunnelling in whole soil layer. Especially in 171m length of tunnel before rock site, large scale ones were reported many times. As boulders are found, more and larger as closer the rock layer, they can be regarded as corestones generated from the bed rocks. 3. TUNNELLING PERFORMANCE THRUST and TORQUE Total thrust was expected around 1700 ton which can be calculated by superposition of external loads and operational loads in operation of shielded TBM. Resistances arising from frictional force between shield and soil and reactionary force against pressures of working face were calculated as much as 738ton and 913ton respectively, while the effective thrust as a resistance at the cutting edges was calculated 28ton, only 1.7% of total thrust. Machine has the capacity of about 3 times of operating thrust as in Table 1. Total operational torque was expected around 882ton.m, which is 87% of the machine capacity. In those calculations, average earth pressure was assumed as much as 94 KPa. PREDICTION OF NET PENETRATION RATE Theoretical net penetration rate(PR) can be designed with the penetration depth(Pe) and rotational speed(RPM) as n is the cutting times of bits in a revolution of the cutterhead.

PR = n Pe RPM NKK, Japanese manufacturer designed the bit system that 165 of the clung 247 chisel bits would generally perform the soil cutting, which enables to cut the working face more than three times in a revolution of the cutterhead. It may be calculated as total width of chisel bits divided by the radius of cutterhead. As 2.8 mm of the penetration depth was given on geotechnical conditions of the soil layer with the effective thrust of 28 ton, a theoretical rate will be 8.72 mm/RPM. And it will be predicted as much as 68.0 cm/hr with 1.3 RPM in soil. ANALYSIS OF NET PENETRATION RATE Shielded TBM was operated from January 2000 after machine assembly in working site. Operation in No. 1 tunnel was finished after 391 days including non-working 184 days. But only 90 working days were needed in soil layers. Daily practical net penetration rates fluctuated a lot as shown in Figure 2. That fluctuated data can be explained easily by analysing in weekly average as in Figure 3. Starting and training of TBM operation has been done in the first 2 weeks with only 23.1 cm/hr. After a continuous careful operation, the practical average was recorded higher than the predicted for 8~10th weeks with 76.1 cm/hr. In this period, the daily maximum was 97.3 cm/hr in 26 April in 9th week, about 40 % higher than the predicted net penetration rate.

100

Net Penetration Rate (cm/hr)

Soil 80 60 40
Week 11.(00-05-12)

Rock

Week 18.(00-07-15)

20 0 0 100 200 300 Driving Distance (m) 400 500 600

Figure 2. Daily net penetration rate for operating 207 days

After high performance period, soil layer consisted of larger and more corestone which prevented TBM from advancing with the predicted rate. Thrust has not been applied higher than in previous sector because machine has shaken with higher force. Net penetration rates were recorded to show up and down in range of 40~60 cm/hr for 7 weeks. This fluctuation was caused by and became an evidence of the change of geological conditions. NET PENETRATION RATE - THRUST Thrust was given higher and higher in first 7 weeks as seen in Fig. 3, which explains that TBM operation has been performed carefully because of lack of experiences. The net penetration rate was also recorded much less than the predicted in this period even if thrust was equal to or a little higher than the designed one.
100

In the next higher rat e stage, thrust was given as much as the designed one, which may be resulted in by ideal TBM operation. With the help of the analysis of tunnelling performance, soil layers can be divided in 4 sectors on geological condition as in Table 3. It can be estimated 3 and 4 sectors where an ideal performance has been carried out. For the ideal operation, the net penetration rate has a linear relation to thrust as in a circle marked in Figure 4. In week 11, thrust was given as much as week 10 and week 9 on ignorance of the presence of corestone, which has caused the machine vibrating and the net penetration rate recording lower. The optimum thrust level is estimated around 1100 ton and 1300~1800 ton in soil with and without larger corestone respectively, meanwhile theoretical one

Net P.R. (cm/hr) Thrust (MN)

80

Net P. R. and Thrust

60

40

20

0 0 5 10 Working Time (week) 15 20

Figure 3. Weekly averaged net penetration rate and thrust in soil Table 3. Operating data for every geological conditional sectors Net Working Days alignment Sector penetration rate (day/week) length (m) (cm/hr) SOIL-1 SOIL-2 SOIL-3 SOIL-4 Total 11 / 2 29 / 5 18 / 3 32 / 7 90 / 17 30 117 125 171 443 23.1 39.3 Small scale corestone 76.1 46.3 46.1 Large scale corestone Soil

Description Starting and training

100
10

Net Penetration Rate (cm/hr)

80

8 13 17 12 14 16

60

15 6 11 5 4 2 3

40

week 1.

20

0 0 5 10 15 20 25

Thrust Force (MN)

Figure 4. Relation between net penetration rate and thrust in soil has been calculated about 1700 ton. The relational equation is as below with R2 = 0.778 excluding the data of week 11. PR = 0.0376 F T + 14.2 This equation, of course is not expected to apply directly to every site, but it can be an index of the TBM operation. We might check how well the current operation has been being done by analyzing the relation everyday and every week. 4. DISCUSSIONAL CONCLUSION The net penetration rate is proportionally increased with the effective thrust on cutting tool. It will be very difficult to measure the effective thrust for cutting soil because it is much smaller than total thrust in operation of a shielded TBM. Nevertheless total thrust will not act purely on cutting, actual data has an excellent linear relation with R2 = 0.78 in No. 1 tunnel for Kwangju urban subway construction. This result may have a roll as an index to check the current performance in shielded TBM operation. Theoretical net penetration rate was predicted 68.0 cm/hr and the practical rates were recorded 65~95 cm/hr daily with 1300~1800 ton of thrust as much as expected. But in case of the soil layer containing much of larger corestones, it dropped to 40~60 cm/hr with around 1100 ton of thrust which were 30 % lower than the designed ones respectively. 5. REFERENCES Kwangju Urban Subway Corporation, 1998. Report on geotechnical investigation for Kwangju urban subway construction, Kwangju, Korea Park Chulwhan, C. Park, J. Synn, C. Sunwoo and S. Chung , 2001. TBM penetration rate with rock mass properties in hard rock, Proceedings of the AITESITA 2001 World Tunnel Congress, Milano, Italy Park Chulwhan, et al, 2001. Estimation of net penetration rate of a shielded TBM in Kwangju urban subway construction, Project Report 20015114, Korea Institute of Geosceince and Mineral Resources Park Chulwhan and K. Lee, 1994. Evaluation of the TBM performance, Proceedings of the 6th South America Symposiu m on Rock Mechanics, Chile Japanese Institute of Civil Engineering, 1996. Standard plan of tunnel construction Part of Shielded TBM Eisenstein Z., 1994. Large undersea tunnels and the progress of tunneling technology, Tunnelling & Underground Space Technology, vol. 9, no. 3 Herzog M., 1985. Die Pressenkrafte bei Schildvortrieb und Rohrvorpressung im Lockergestein, Bau maschine, Nr. 32