Portal Design
Portal Design
The portal excavation is defined as excavation of the portal area up to the excavation cut,
where tunneling work commence. The portal excavation extends to include both the main and
escape tunnel portal.
Since, the long-term slope stability and large portal excavation can typically only be achieved
by expensive supporting measures, the portal excavation should be kept as small as possible.
The ‘excavation cut ‘is defined as the front wall of the portal excavation where tunneling work
commence.
Portal excavation up to the excavation cut is carried out in horizontal layers with the excavated
slope supported concurrently with wire mesh, shotcrete as a binding layer and erosion
protection and grouted or self-boring rock bolts. The height of the horizontal layer in loose
ground and poor rock should not exceed 2m, so that the exposed ground does not loosen
neither due to weathering nor over stressing. By this method the necessary measures are
minimized.
Before construction of the shotcrete portal structure and after shotcreting of the exaction cut,
advance support of the first round to be tunneled using fore poling bars or pipes is inserted.
The fore poling is intended to prevent over break, collapse and material inflow for the first
excavation round.
Slope support with shotcrete thickness of at least 20 cm can be considered as permanent. For
aesthetic consideration the excavated slope in the portal area can be covered by stone facia,
Green (vegetative) facia or concrete wall.
A drainage channel is foreseen at the top of the excavation cut to prevent water flowing down
the cut. It is also advisable to place a fence above the excavated slope to prevent people or
animal falling into the excavated portal area.
The portal structure during construction is used to define the required tunnel profile before the
underground tunneling commences and also to protect from falling material from the slope
above the portal. The profile of the tunnel section is therefore extended above ground using
open-cut-methods.
Steel arch element for profile control are placed at interval of approx.1 m on a concrete slab.
Outer and inner layers of reinforcing steel are then hung on the steel arch element, forming a
steel cage. The outer layer of reinforcement is overlain with a fleece material, so that the steel
cage is closed to the outside. A shotcrete layer is applied to the steel cage so that all steel
element is sufficiently covered. By this method a permanent tunnel shell has been constructed
and underground tunneling work can commence.
Figure 1 Left: Steel arches for profile control of a long portal structure; Right: shotcreting of a
short portal structure
One that is driven by geological structure, i.e. Orientation and characteristics of the
joint, bedding and fault that occur behind slope face.
Other in which the stress in rock exceed the rock strength, particularly in weak rock.
For the protection of slope at portal location different types of support composed by grouted
rock bolts, dowel, sprayed concrete, and drapery system with rock anchor shall be used.
1.3 SLOPE PROTECTION DESIGN CRITERIA FOR PORTAL
Design data
Design Method
Stabilization Measures
Design Data:
For design data the inputs required are geological data, geotechnical data and ground water
condition.
Design Method:
There are two broad groups of method for design of slopes:
Planar Failure:
In planar failure (Figure 1.6), the mass progresses out or down and out along a more or less
planar or gently undulating surface.
Wedge Failure:
The possibility of wedge failure exists where two discontinuities strike obliquely across the
slope face and their line of intersection daylights in the slope face.
Toppling failure:
Toppling failure occurs when the weight vector of a block of rock resting on an inclined plane
falls outside the base of the block. This type of failure may occur in undercutting beds.
Figure 5 Toppling failure mode
Stabilization Measures:
The Stability analysis will be first carried out in slide software SLIDE incorporates the most
widely used and accepted limit- equilibrium approaches based on the method of slices.
Figure 6 THE SHAPE OF TYPICAL CIRCULAR SLIDING SURFACES WITH THE DETAIL OF FORCES ON
SLICE
Ground water – the ground water tables are taken as per borehole data at the portal
locations.
For the most critical slope section at the portal, the potential for total global slope failure shall
be investigated by considering circular failure mechanism. The global stability analysis will be
carried out in both static loading condition and seismic loading conditions with the latter case
adopting a pseudo-static approach of analysis.
The stage wise global stability analysis for slopes will be carried out for critical section using
RS2 software. First the critical section will be analyzed without any support system. The
results of the analysis are expressed as a factor of safety which is defined as the ratio of
available shear strength to the shear stresses developed on the sliding plane. If FOS of
unsupported slope is less than desired, suitable support system shall be used and it will be
re-analyzed to achieve desired FOS. In global stability analysis of cut-slope stage wise
analysis first up to 20 to 30m from top excavation level shall be carried out after that analysis
for final excavation up to bottom level will be carried out, although support requirement for
analysis of final stage will govern.
The Shear Strength Reduction option in RS2 allows you to automatically perform a finite
element slope stability analysis and compute a critical strength reduction factor for the
model. The critical strength reduction factor is equivalent to the "safety factor" of the slope.
The overall factor of safety for slope is determined for two different load combinations, the
normal load combination (no earthquake load) and the exceptional load combination
considering the earthquake load case. The desired factor of safety for each load combination
is given in as follows:
1.5.1 Shotcrete
Shotcrete or sprayed concrete is concrete, or mortar conveyed through hose pneumatically
projected with high velocity onto the surface. Shotcrete can be used with rock anchor.
The wire mesh will be used to capture falling of small chunks of rock mass during
excavation, wherever required. This will be used along with shotcrete of adequate thickness.
Grade of wire mesh will be fe500, thickness of wire mesh will of 4 mm and grid to grid
spacing will be 100 mm x100 mmx5mm.