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  A study of the TBM performance in fault zones and highly fractured rocks

  The great development of Tunnel Boring Machines in tunnelling industry is mainly due to their advantages with respect to conventional excavation, such as continuous operation, safer working conditions and greater rate of advance. However, the TBM performance could be significantly reduced due to bad geological conditions such as faulted and highly fractured rocks. After identifying the main effects of difficult ground conditions on TBM operations, the aim of this paper is trying to correlate the machine advancement to a geomechanical description of the rock mass, mainly based on existing rock mass classification systems. To this purpose, the data of the Lötschberg Base Tunnel, a railway tunnel in the Swiss Alps, have been analysed. The results seem to confirm the great issues that fault zones and highly fractured rocks may pose on TBM performance assessment because of the complex identification and estimation of the relevant countless factors.

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