Evaluation of method for calculation of theoretical fracture apertures for determination of grouting results

When constructing a tunnel, the main challenges are geotechnical and hydrogeological. In the working process the aim in tunneling is to secure the rock mass by sealing the mass before blasting. This is done by grouting. The problem with tunneling is that there is a high leakage of groundwater when the boreholes hits fracture apertures that conduct the groundwater through the rock mass. The water flow is measured in dams continuously throughout the tunneling process. These dams are located at regular intervals along the tunnel. This master thesis has together with Golder and Trafikverket analyzed 15 selected dams. These 15 dams were selected because they had a uniform measurements of flow series for autumn 2020. But also, more important, a new grouting design was implemented in spring 2020. This study is limited to one contract from the project E4 Bypass Stockholm. The evaluated method is based on a backward calculation from grouting data to determine a theoretical fracture apertures. The theoretical fracture aperture is calculated from the rheology of grouting, pressure, and time for grouting but also the predicted fractures during the geological investigations. The hypothesis through the whole master thesis is that high leakage of groundwater correlates with larger fractures in the rock mass, and low leakage of ground water correlates with smaller fractures in the rock mass. Therefore, the leakage was categorized as high leakage and low leakage, respectively for the dams. To investigate this, the theoretical fracture apertures were determined with a calculation tool, MrGrout. This program has the capacity to handle a large amount of data. The result consists of graphical interpretations of the theoretically calculated fracture apertures from each category. The results showed that graphically there was a very small difference between the fractures for high leakage and low leakage, respectively. For the category of high leakage, it was found that 50\% of all fracture apertures were dominated by a size below 250µm. The low leakage had 50\% of the dominated fracture apertures below 200µm. To investigate whether there was a statistically significant difference between the categories the result continued with a T-test. The null hypothesis for the test was that there is no difference. The results of the test showed that we could not reject the null hypothesis and that there is no significant difference. However, the margin was too small to be able to secure the hypothesis graphically. Several assumptions were made to implement the method, which leads to uncertainties. The calculation method is made automatically, which is advantageous when analyzing a large amount of data. The disadvantage of the method is that a manual calculation would have given a more reliable result but also take longer to calculate. A manual calculation had also made the result subjective, which in turn would require several repeated attempts to make a statistically independent evaluation. The conclusion is therefore that the method should be used on other projects to be able to compare whether leakage correlates with fracture apertures in the rock mass. This study does not provide a direct basis for knowing whether we have achieved a sufficient seal. The method is in an early phase to be able to use theoretical fracture apertures in practical decisions for tunneling. Ämnesgranskare för examensarbetet: Lars M. Hansen, Institutionen för Geovetenskaper.