special Tunnelling
Underground Space & Tunnelling -
Challenges & Technology
The geological and geotechnical investigation program is required be adequately
accomplished in order to provide realistic information for economic and safe
design and construction of the underground structures, writes MM Madan,
former Executive Director, NHPC.
I
n India construction of tunnels in the form
of underground passages and water carrying
conduits dates back to Mahabharata era. The
famous lakshagriha escape route planned by
Pandavas was through secret tunnel under the
lakshagriha. Many more tunnels have been found
in the old forts and palaces which were used as
secret escape routes. In British era many railroad
tunnels were made. However, tunnelling for
hydro power took a lead and most of them were
constructed mostly in Himalayan terrain.
In the modern era, tunnelling and underground
works constitute a major portion of development
MM Madan of rail tunnels, road tunnels, hydro power, mining,
Executive Director strategic oils reserves, water supply & sewerage,
(NHPC), CEO & coal mines, nuclear power projects and urban
President (JSPL),
area metro rail network as well as strategic secret
Director (Hydro) - GVK,
CEO (Hydro) - escape routes etc.
LNJ Bhilwara Group Around the world tunneling has become a
part of life. Many large and long tunnels have been
62 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | July 2020
completed successfully in road & rail sector. 50km
long tunnels are very common today. For example,
137 km long water supply tunnel was made in
1945 in New York. Similarly, in Finland also 120
km long tunnel has been made for water supply.
In rail sector China and Finland have 123 km and
100 km long tunnel respectively. In road sector
the famous Gothard Base Tunnel of Switzerland is
151.84km long and has two single tunnels of about
57km length each.
The total road tunnels constructed in China
are more than 15285km (2017) and followed by
Japan which has more than 4026km (2012) of
road tunnels and Norway 1338km (2017). India’s
tunneling and underground segment has witnessed
significant development in recent past. For
example, Metro rail network itself has executed
about 500km of tunnels in India. Presently tunnels
are being constructed at a pace of over 100 km
per year.
 special Tunnelling

PirPanjal
Railway Tunnel

India has also constructed longest 11.21 km Challenges

PirPanjal railway tunnel and 9.2 km long Chenani- It has been observed that tunneling projects in
Nashri and Rohtang 8.9km long road tunnels in India faces many challenges. The tunnels which
the fragile Himalayas besides 373 kms of are located in Himalayas are faced with complex
tunneling for Delhi Metro only in the country, geological conditions and then contractual
to name a few, completed and commissioned disputed override and the work gets affected.
recently. In the Indian context, as per available Even EPC contracts and turnkey contracts enter
data, the longest road and rail tunnels are mostly into unending disputes.
constructed in J&K, followed by Himachal. In execution of hydropower projects, it
In almost all hilly areas road and rail tunnels has been observed that, unforeseen geological
have been planned and execution is going on at conditions and associated geotechnical problems
fast pace. are major contributor to the cost and time
In addition, major road tunnel projects like overruns. Geological conditions alone cannot be
6.5 km long Z-Morh, 14.2 km long Zojilla, blamed for all the cost and time overruns. Most
having strategic importance, are in hand for of the time, the time and cost overrun are the
implementation. Sikkim is constructing rail tunnel of result of inadequate investigations, inadequate
about 42km length besides 25km long road tunnel geological data, inappropriate interpretation of
is also under construction. The longest power available data and incompetency in dealing with
tunnel for hydro project under construction is at the problems during execution and poor decision
Parbati-stage –II project having a length of 31.5 km making to deal with the issues once they have
besides to name a few; Kishangangatunnel (14km arisen. The basic problem faced in attempting to PirPanjal Railway
single face), Dulhasti tunnel (10.6km), Uri tunnel predict the prevailing geological and geotechnical Tunnel.
(10.5km), BSL project tunnel (13.12km), Nathpa
Jhakari (28km), Teesta St-3 (13.8km) & Teesta St-5
tunnel (17.2km) for hydro projects have been
completed successfully.
In spite of availability of the state-of-the-art
technology and equipment, the timely delivery
of such projects for creating underground
space has always been a matter of concern.
At present, many tunneling projects are under
construction in all the sectors. It is estimated
that in the future, the infrastructure development
will take place underground considering the
environment, scarcity of land, and for the purpose
of security. It has been planned to construct
about 6000km of road tunnel and 1000km of rail
tunnels in addition to hydro and strategic area
tunnels. However, in India there are no records
available for all the tunnels constructed in different
sectors.

July 2020 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | 63

special Tunnelling
TBM at work
situations in the construction of surface structures
and underground works is the inadequacy of the
information obtained from the site investigations in
squeezed investigation program.
The complex geological regions like the
Himalayas pose major challenges for construction
of hydroelectric projects. Projects located in
the region have faced many geological and geo-
hydrological issues while executing surface and
subsurface works. The surface problems broadly
include existence of inhomogeneous deep
overburden in the river bed or buried valley, abrupt
change in bed rock profile, occurrences of fault
The objective zones / shear zones / fractured rock in the dam
of geological/ foundation and slope instability in the abutments as
geotechnical well as rock fall /slide and failure of back slope of
investigations surface power house, etc. The major subsurface
is to get problems in tunneling and underground works
the basic include issues such as squeezing ground conditions,
upheavals, tectonic stresses, popping, rock
data for the bursting, high temperature gradient, heavy ingress
economic, safe of water during execution, existence of large shear
design and zones, flowing ground conditions, abrupt change
construction in strata conditions, low cover zones or very high
of surface and cover/ overburden and emission of methane and
underground other gases etc.
structures.
Surface Structures
The occurrence of weak zones in the form of
fault, shear zone etc. and buried channels is a
hazard in relevance to dam foundation and other
surface structures of a hydropower project.
Their presence in the foundation of dams poses
problems of leakage creating uplift pressures,
settlement and sliding, etc. Thus the dam designers
have to live with these adversities, analyzing and
treating them adequately to make the structure
safe beyond doubt. Treatment of these zones
of weaknesses is mainly dependent on their
64 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | July 2020
disposition, dimensions, nature of material in the
zone, its location with respect to a structure and
the type of structure, etc.
Underground Works
In tunneling and underground works, the complex
geological setting has caused considerable stability
problems. The geological uncertainties for
underground openings are related to two major
factors: non-geological and geological.
- The non-geological factors are connected
to the level of skill and expertise gained
by experience and the interpretation and
decision making skills during the planning and
construction phases of tunneling projects. The
ability to evaluate and tackle the stability issues
during planning and construction and the tools,
methods and technologies used in that process
have great significance, since erroneous
interpretation may result in considerable loss.
- The geological factors are related to the
geological complexity of the region. The
complexity is represented mainly by four
engineering geological characteristics that
have caused major stability problems during
tunnelling. These are: (a) weak rock mass
quality (b) high degree of weathering and
fracturing (c) rock stresses and (d) groundwater
effect.
It is a fact that the key to success or failure of
any tunneling project is the quality of the rock mass
that the tunnel passes through and rock support
measures that are applied during tunnel excavation
as well as the speed of providing supports so
minimize the deformation of the freshly excavated
rock mass. In this respect, accurate evaluation,
analysis and interpretation of the rock mass quality
play significant roles. A major challenge therefore is
to address the geological uncertainties so that cost

effectiveness and safer tunneling may be achieved.
Inaccessibility to the investigation sites of tunnels
and caverns, particularly in the Himalayan region
and other hilly areas, is the major hindrance in
carrying out geological / geotechnical investigations.
Thick vegetation, rugged topography, river
crossing, obscured geological evidences along the
tunnel alignments, etc., make the task of geological
/ geotechnical investigation more difficult. As the
tunnels are very long, variations in rock types and
rock mass characteristics are imminent. Due to
poor accessibility it is difficult to carry out detailed
explorations by drilling at the identified locations
and these issues delays the investigation program.
While tunneling in complex and varied
geological settings, prediction of rock mass quality,
analyzing stress induced problems, squeezing
and prognostication of inflow and leakage have
often been found difficult during the planning
stage. Considerable discrepancies have been
found between predicted and actual rock mass
conditions, resulting in significant cost and time
overrun for many of the tunneling projects. Finding
innovative solutions for quantifying geological
uncertainties is a key factor for cost effective and
optimum tunneling through Himalayan rock mass.
Prior knowledge of impending geological
complexities is always helpful in giving pre-emptive
engineering solutions. Hence, need for adequate
engineering geological investigations is necessity in
order to minimize the risk of encountering unknown
or unanticipated adverse geological conditions.
The geological and geotechnical investigation
program, which is planned in four stages viz., Pre-
feasibility stage(PFR), Feasibility stage(FR), Detailed
Project Report (DPR) and Construction stage, is
required be adequately accomplished in order
to provide realistic information for economic and
safe design and construction of the underground
structures. The extent of work to be undertaken
at FR and DPR stages generally depend on the
complexity of geological conditions at project
sites. Sometimes the critical factors /problems are
missed in pre-construction phase and they only
come to light during construction stage, these lead
to extensive delays and cost overruns. Sometimes
these adverse geological conditions continue to
remain unsolved even during operation phase
making situation highly risky.
The experience of huge cost and time
overruns has resulted in the concept of ‘Bankable
DPR’ supported with adequate geological /
geotechnical investigations. DPR is expected
to provide a roadmap of the project so that the
project can be assessed techno-economically
and constructed with minimum time and cost
overruns. A bankable DPR is a document which
can give enough confidence to the lending agencies
that each component of the proposed project
has been adequately explored in such a way that
special Tunnelling
there will be very limited scope of deviation and
the nature of work would not undergo major
changes during construction stage. The constraints
and uncertainties are well understood and suitable
provisions are made in design so that these are
not met as surprises. The main requirement of a
DPR being bankable is the assurance of the project
being constructed within the estimated cost and
time schedule.
The problems especially while executing
hydropower projects in complex Himalayan region
may be regarded as challenge and opportunity
for generating new knowledge base and thereby The aim should
increasing self-reliance, particularly in tunneling be to obtain
and underground works: The construction of
hydroelectric projects involving surface as well
as complete
as tunnels and underground civil structures is a
information of
demanding task when these structures are located the subsurface
in rugged terrain under complex geological setup. geological
It is observed that execution of a number conditions
of hydroelectric projects in India have become to arrive at
hazardous, time consuming and costly affair on a techno-
encountering adverse geological conditions. The
key to accelerated implementation of hydropower
economic
project under such circumstance, therefore, lies in evaluation of
expeditiously managing these adverse occurrences. the project.
In the recent time, development of various
advanced investigation techniques and instruments
aimed towards comprehensive site investigation
have proved very helpful in minimizing the
occurrence of geological surprises. Besides, there
has been many fold improvement in construction
methodologies and construction equipment as
well as modern construction chemicals, etc. that
are suitable for effectively tackling the adverse
geological occurrences during surface and
underground construction works and mitigating TBM at work in J&K's
the detrimental issues, thereby boosting the level Kishaganga hydro
of confidence in project execution. project.
July 2020 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | 65
special Tunnelling
Teesta Stage. Recommendations
The construction of hydropower projects,
particularly in Himalayan settings, requires
thorough investigations of geological and
geotechnical features. The objective of geological
/geotechnical investigations is to get the basic data
for the economic, safe design and construction of
surface and underground structures.
The aim should be to obtain as complete
information of the subsurface geological conditions
to arrive at a techno-economic evaluation of the
project.
Appropriate investigations during the initial
planning stage may ultimately lead to a most
economic design of the structures.
Geological mapping, subsurface exploration
and rock mechanical (in-situ / lab) investigations are
helpful in freezing the alignment of tunnels, sitting of
Appropriate underground structures and fixing of dam alignment
investigations etc to ensure stability and safety of dams and as well
during the as other surface and underground structures.
initial planning At times, situation might demand further
stage may investigations, therefore, time and quantum of site
investigation should commensurate with the size
ultimately and complexity of the project.
lead to a most The investigations are needed to be carried out
economic in four stages: Pre-feasibility stage (PFR), Feasibility
design of the stage (FR), Detailed Project Report (DPR) and
structures. Construction stage. Results of each stage should
be carefully reviewed and a conscious decision
taken for the scope of work in the next stage.
The ultimate goal should be to determine,
with reasonable accuracy, the subsurface rock
mass condition both for surface and underground
works:
During underground excavation rock mass
behavior around the opening or tunnel/cavern
undergoes significant changes which results into
deformation or displacement and it is important to
understand how it will react to or behave during
underground excavation.
66 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | July 2020
Concluding Points
- Importance of investigation of the
geological conditions; how much to
investigate
- Risk sharing by developer vis a vis
contractor
- Adopting latest execution techniques
in difficult ground like ground freezing,
5 P method of excavation, DRESS
methodology, pre-grouting
- Adopting latest supporting techniques
- Adopting latest construction equipment
- latest construction chemicals
- Modifying designs as per the Himalayas
geology
- Adopting various latest methods of
ventilation in tunnels
- Shortage of skilled manpower and skill
development at various stages
- Respecting dispute resolution mechanism
- To avoid delays in struck projects,
quick decision making to be inculcated-
respective ministry to make strict rules-
approved panel of third party consisting
of experienced engineers may be created
- NATM to be implemented in right
earnest based on Himalayan geology.
- Future tunnels to be planned with
using tunnel boring machines (TBMs)
depending on applicability in various
regions.
- Adoption of long term use of
Instrumentation for monitoring stress and
deformity after commissioning of projects
- Provisions of geological baseline report in
the bidding process
- Importance of geophysical investigations
by advance methods.
Besides, the investigations would also to be
value addition for mechanized tunneling equipment
like tunnel boring machine (TBM), to be used as an
alternative to the conventional drill-blast method
(DBM).
Each underground project is unique and
vast uncertainty / risk exists in these projects.
The program of geological and geotechnical
investigations should be framed to collect,
generate and analyze engineering geological and
rock mechanics data for site characterization, in
different stages of investigation and also to identify
potential geo-hazards that may exist at project
sites.
The investigation program should effectively
cater to all stages of the sites evaluation process.
Based on comprehensive investigations of the
various project components using advanced
tools and techniques a Bankable DPR should
be prepared, deliberating possible problems

associated with various project components.
Investigations need not cease when construction
or execution has started.
Inadequate engineering geological investigation
can substantially increase the risk of encountering
unexpected adverse conditions that can seriously
delay or even stop construction with costly
consequences.
One of the difficult and intricate aspects of any
geological/geotechnical investigation is deciding
how much exploration to do. The amount of
exploration to be done on any given project site
should be determined by experience / budgetary
provision. It must also be known that how detailed
may be one exploration / investigation program for
surface and underground works in particular, it is
not that all problem areas can be duly predicted.
Hence, there is a possibility of encountering
adverse geological occurrences in the form of
geological uncertainties, during construction stage
which obviously involve physical and financial risks.
In view of the above, it should be a practice
to establish a base line of geological/geotechnical
data and prepare a ‘Geotechnical Baseline Report’
(GBR) for defining and allocating the risk and
associated cost, which may be shared with the
EPC contractor. In this way the executing agency
will have adequate resources and expertise in
handling such adverse conditions timely, as prompt
decision making by the implementing agency is the
essence of the matter. This risk sharing mechanism
also optimizes the cost as the contractor knows
well in advance the risk and its sharing mechanism.
For efficient execution of the project, attention
is required to be given towards utilization of state-
of-the-art investigation instruments & techniques.
With the recent technological advance, the practice
of investigation has undergone radical changes. For
comprehensive site investigation and successful
construction of surface and underground structures
in complex geological situations and in dealing
with the challenging issues, critical attention must
therefore be given towards prospective usage of
advanced tools and techniques:
Adoption of suitable modern construction
equipment and methodologies would unravel
the geological complexities and adversities well
in advance: Now-a-days, with the availability of
efficient construction techniques, equipment and
modern chemicals, etc. it has become possible
to advantageously work through the adverse
geological conditions.
While other subsurface structures like surge
shafts, desilting chambers and powerhouse caverns
are constructed in limited spaces with lesser
variations in ground conditions, the long tunnels
encounter frequently changing ground conditions
and face serious constraints in investigations due
to inaccessibility and high superincumbent cover
that pose constraints in dependable estimations.
special Tunnelling
Besides application of standard investigation
techniques, possible solution lies in systematic
advance probing during construction: As the
Himalayan geology in tunnels changes frequently,
therefore, whatever amount of exploration is
done on ground cannot predict exactly the type
of strata that will be encountered. Therefore
investigation ahead of tunnel face should become
a part of excavation cycle in the form of probe
drilling and underground geophysical study, etc. in
order to get the geological foreknowledge of what
lies ahead of tunnel face.
Preparedness at project site should always
be in the form of readiness in dealing with the
worst condition by keeping alternate equipment
Inadequate
and material at the work location. Continuous
geological monitoring and inputs from expert
engineering
committees important in facilitating the designer to geological
go in for mid-way correction in the designs, in investigation
case essentially required. Prompt decision making can substantially
by the implementing agency is vital in managing increase the risk
adverse geological occurrences. of encountering
It is important to understand that in
unexpected
hydroelectric project investigation, applications of
various techniques at sites for surface structures and
adverse
underground works would primarily be governed conditions
by the necessity as well as the adequacy of that can
information needed and selecting the appropriate seriously delay
tools and techniques according. or even stop
As each project is unique and the geological construction
issues are diverse, it is challenging task to
execute in geologically complex conditions:
with costly
The geotechnical applications cannot be
consequences.
generalized and implemented, as a routine, at
sites for similar civil structures and it is prudent
that utilization of state-of-the-art techniques
and instruments should in consideration of the
relevance, applicability as well as the stage of
the project development. Also, in the project
construction stage, during execution of surface
and underground works, the efficiency of project
execution can be greatly enhanced by the judicious
adoption of pragmatic approach, involving suitable
advanced methodologies and appropriate
construction equipment.
July 2020 | CONSTRUCTION TIMES | 67