Soft Sedimentary Rock Slopes Design of Diversion Tunnel

Several remedial works were attempted to stabilize the collapsed area of the inlet slopes of diversion tunnel, but prevention of any further movement was being only carried out at beginning stage by filling the area with aggregates and rock debris, after several cracks had been initiated and developed around the area. The extra specialty developed folding zone is consisted with highly weathered Greywacke and Black shale. The suggested solution is to improve the properties of the rock mass of failed area by choosing the optimum level of reinforcement through the increment of slope rock support design so as to control the movement of slopes during the re-excavation. The Bakun hydroelectric project includes the construction of a hydroelectric power plant with an installed capacity of 2,520MW and a power transmission system connecting to the existing transmission networks in Sarawak and Western Malaysia. The power station will consist of a 210m height Concrete Faced Rockfill Dam. During the construction of the dam and the power facilities the Balui River has to be diverted of the tunnels is 12m and the tunnel width is 16m at the portal area. This paper describes the stability analysis and design methods for the open cut rock slopes in the inlet area of the diversion tunnels. The geotechnical parameters employed in stability calculations were given as a function of four defined Rock Mass Type (RMT) which were based on RMR system from Bieniawski. The stability calculations procedure of the rock slopes are divided into two stages. In the first stage, it is calculated for the stability of each "global" slope without any rock support and shotcrete system. In the second stage, it is calculated for each "local" slope stability with berms and supported with rock bolts and shotcrete. The monitoring instrumentation was performed continuously and some of the design modification was carried out in order to increase the safety of failed area based on the unforeseen geological risks during the open cut excavation.