Seepage Analysis for Oil Storage Rock Cavern in Singapore

Jianping Sun
China Communications Construction Company Limited (Singapore Branch)

Fei Xiao
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

ABSTRACT: Currently, at Singapore Jurong Island, underground oil storage caverns namely
Jurong Rock Caverns Project (JRC Project) having capacity of about 1.47 million cubic meters
have been excavated. In order to reduce the risk associated with water seepage, a reliable hydro-
geological model should be established based on the in situ investigation/monitoring data. The
key challenging issue in the hydro-geological model building is how to integrate limited geolog-
ical and hydro-geological data to determine the hydraulic conductivity of the fractured rock
masses. Based on the data obtained from different stages (site investigation stage, construction
stage, and post-construction stage), suitable models and methods are proposed to determine the
hydraulic conductivities at different locations and depths.
At site investigation stage, starting from rock fracture properties surveyed in six boreholes, the
anisotropic hydraulic conductivities are estimated using the in situ injection test results and
Oda’s theoretical model. A neural network method is then utilized to generate the three dimen -
sional heterogeneous hydraulic conductivities based on the anisotropic hydraulic conductivities
along the six boreholes.
An important part of the project during the construction stage is the characterization of the hy-
draulic properties of the rock mass through probe holes during the excavation. The work in-
volves the drilling of a number of probe holes from the cavern front. The water flow rate and
water pressure are measured near the water bearing zone to estimate the hydraulic properties of
the rock mass. Based on the measured data, the hydraulic conductivity can be derived based on
analytical equation.
At post construction stage, the hydraulic heads at eight control points in operation tunnel at up -
per level were monitored and the water flow into rock cavern was collected. To take advantages
of analytical solutions and numerical methods into account, a semi-analytical approach is pro -
posed for assessing the water inflow into caverns of the horseshoe section. After that, the semi-
analytical solution is used for the back-analysis of the hydraulic conductivity along cavern on
the basis of the in-situ monitoring data.
Keywords: Oil storage rock cavern, Seepage analysis, Hydraulic conductivity, Fractured rock
mass, In-situ data