Accurate quantitative assessment of grouting efficiency in fractured rocks by evaluating the aperture sizes of fractures

절리암반내 그라우팅 성과에 대한 정량적인 판단기법 개발

Groundwater flow is primarily influenced by the presence of fractures, functioning as conduits. To block the flow, grouting operation is commonly used. Thereby the fractures are then expected to be sealed, which will add to enhance the shear strength in rock. This far, regarding the assessment of grouting efficiency, however, there's been a considerable uncertainty That is, several geophysical methods of high resolution such as tomography, S-wave logging have produced a significant amount of measurable response caused by grouting, but they can inevitably be used only for the qualitative assessment. Thus, this paper deals with an accurate quantitative assessment about the grouting result. In this, a new strategy is introduced, based mainly on evaluating the opening of fractures. For fracture-opening investigation purposes, borehole Televiewer has already proven to be an excellent logging technique that produces both amplitude image and traveltime image. As well known, the traveltime image can be converted to a high precision 3D caliper log with max. 288 arms, which allows to observe the opening of fractures. To evaluate the fracture opening from the traveltime image, an algorithm of practical use was developed, in which image correction due to the borehole deviation, feature discrimination of wall roughness from fractures, automatic evaluation procedure etc. were considered. Field examples are shown to confirm the efficiency of the suggested method.