内容简介
Tunnel construction offffers unique insights into the interior structure of rock massifs. Soluble rocks encountered during tunnel construction, however, pose a substantial challenge. Especially classical karst rocks such as limestone, dolostone, gypsum, and anhydrite are unpredictable during tunnel excavation. The enlarged voids created by the long-term dissolution of the soluble rocks in contact with water pose risks because of possible uncontrollable water inflflow and of instability of the encountered cave voids, which often requires expensive remediation measures. We model the long-term development of karst features and the evolution of phreatic and epi-phreatic caves below the Schalkau Plateau in the Triassic limestone with a numerical karst evolution model. With hydrological boundary conditions derived from local meteorological data and karst springs, and a simplifified model of the local lithology, our model predicts the increase in secondary permeability in the karst aquifer. Enlarged fracture zones develop at locations, where cave systems have been explored. Thus our longterm evolution model can successfully predict karst features in the Schalkau Plateau. Applying the karst evolution model on a short-term period, we assess the effffect of consolidation measures taken to stabilise the tunnel cross section in vicinity of the Bleßberg Cave and its longer-term stability. Our model results suggest that flflow through the cave section beneath the tunnel, which has been fifilled with concrete and blocks, is blocked and that during flflood events the impounded water will accelerate the development of by-passes around the artifificial infifill.