A MUCKING BY A CONTINUOUS CONVEYOR BELT SYSTEM IN A LONG MOUNTAIN TUNNEL Ryuzabro Morita'Narihiro Hayashi" ABSTRACT liyama Tunnel is a 22.2 km-long railway tunnel for the Hokuriku Shinkansen (bullet train) Line, ‘The Konari section in this tunnel adopted a continuous conveyor belt system, in selecting a mucking system, whose field adopted in a long tunnel recently is increasing, The continuous conveyor belt system is a system which makes the length of a conveyor belt extend at any me with progress of digging, A muck conveyed with the continuous belt conveyor from face is moved to access tunnel at the central part of the main tunnel, and carried out to the surface. ‘This paper first describes the comparison of the conveyor belt system with a rubber-tyre system as a mucking system, then referring to the reason why the former system was finally adopted. This paper then shows its current situation and performance to date. Keyword: mudstone INTRODUCTION In recent years, a rubber-tire system is usually used for the tunnel construction as a mucking system in Japan, However, the protection of the environmental is getting to be socially important, and the truck is attached the equipment which black lead is removed from and purifies discharge gas. Moreover, it is selected that ventilation capacity is enlarged and duct collector is installed. This is not a radical improvement, since discharge gas and fine particles are generated whenever a truck runs, To solve these environmental problems, mucking system by a continuous conveyor belt is getting to be adopted for long tunnel construction. Although the conveyor belt had so far been used by tunnel boring machine etc., it was rarely chosed by the work of a mountain tunneling. Because, in the case of the mountain tunneling, due to the simultaneous works of digging, invert concrete and lining concrete, etc., it was difficult to install and extend the conveyor belt, without affecting the work. Therefore, the conveyor system has been improved and the device has been newly developed to reduce these problems, First of all, the paper describes a comparison of the : mucking system, continuous conveyor belt system, rubber-tyred system, Shinkansen-line conveyor belt system with a rubber-tire system as a mucking system. Next the reason why the former system was adopted in Tiyama tunnel project is clearly shown, and its current situation and performance to date, particularly in a simultaneous multi-face excavation Finally, the continuous conveyor belt in comparison it with a rubber-tire system is analyzed and is evaluated, OUTLINE OF CONSTRUCTION liyama Tunnel is a 22.2 km-long railway tunnel for the Hokuriku Shinkansen (bullet train) Line, crossing the boundary between Nagano and Niigata Prefectures in Japan (Figure1). The tunnel construction work is, divided into six work sub sections(Figure2). The Konari section, 2nd from the Niigata portal side, is 3800m-long, tunnel work with a 719m-long inclined access tunnel, econnected to the central part of the main tunnel. In the Konari work section (3.8km in length), the host ruck is mudstone, so called Neogene Siiya formation. During tunnel driving, large deformation more than 200mm in convergence have occurred in sections of the overburden exe ding 200m. Moreover, a lot of methane exists in the surrounding ground of this tunnel,Figure 1 Location of liyama Tunnel Figure? Section of Iiyama Tunnel The construction outline is as follows. Job name: Hokuriku Shinkansen, Tiyama Tunnel (Konari) works Job site: Konari, Arai City, Niigata Prefecture Construction period: May 27, 2000 ~ May 30, 2006 Quantities of works: length ‘main tunnel 3.8km inclined access tunnel 719m sectional area main tunnel 80~150m" age fee Nea eee Under Construction (Full Standard) Pome ee as Under Construct (Super Express) SE Not Constructing ‘eRe Existing A Lettie) tee inclined access tunnel 30m* Excavation method: top heading and bench method. Excavation system: machine excavation ‘Mucking system: main tunnel- continuous conveyor belt, inclined tunnel-fixed conveyor belt ADOPTION OF CONTINUOUS BELT CONVEYOR SYSTEM The access tunnel was planned to cope with an expectedpoor geological condition (squeezing problem). And the simultaneous multi-face excavations toward both the Nagano side and the Niigata side were needed due to the construction period, So we adopted a continuous conveyor belt system. The continuous belt conveyor system is a system which can extend the length of the conveyor belt with the proceeding the tunnel face. In this section, the following problems were expected. (J) In the simultaneous multi-face excavation by a rubber-tire system, vehicles, such as Dump Trucks and Truck Mixers, is needed to be increased. (2) Since there is Neogene Siiya formation mudstone, the ground may get worse due to inflow water and it ‘may become difficult for vehicles to move there, (3) In the simultaneous multi-face excavation, it is necessary {0 install two ventilation pipes («P 1800) in inclined tunnel which blow to face, and the tunnel area becomes narrow and considerably crowded. (4) Since the inclined tunnel is 720m with a slope of 12%, the danger of the vehicles accident is high. (5) Since many vehicles run, soot and fine particles are generated and the environment of the tunnel interior gets worse. Therefore, we judged that the continuous conveyor belt system was better fom a synthetic viewpoint, and adopted this system although a rubber-tire system had ‘an advantage in respect to the cost of construction. EXECUTION RECORD After we completed excavating the inclined tunnel, we installed the continuous conveyor belt in April, 2002, in the stage we excavated the main tunnel about 400m in the direction of Niigata. Also, we started excavating from September, 2002 in the direction of Nagano, and installed it about 350m. Muck carried by the continuous conveyor belt is moved to a fixed inclined tunnel-belt conveyor in an intersection, and is taken out to the surface. 1) Specification of the conveyor belt The configuration of the continuous conveyor belt system is shown in Picture!,Picture2. and Figure3. ‘The continuous conveyor belt has the structure which can stock the belt in a belt-storage-cassette. And the system is designed that the belt extends as the tunnel progresses, The specification of the continuous conveyor belt system is shown in Table 1 2) Specification of a crusher and a tail-piece In NATM method, we use the machine excavation Table 1 Specification of the continuous conveyor belt system Fixed Inclined Tunnel ~ Continuous Conveyor Bel t Conveyor Bel t in Main Tunnel Length 720m 3800m Sectional Area 30ni 80ni~ 105ni Slope 12% 0. 3~3% Conveyance Capacity 200t /h 200t /h Vel oci ty 150ninin 150n/ nin Wedth of Belt 610nm 610nm Baers 75kw TOkw Gusher Type - ACA220-Ceocr usherPicturel Continuous belt conveyor Picture 2 Fixed belt conveyor in surface SS sai \ re esa cxmacouns st age Cuneta) _ Section of Main Tunnel a Figure-3 Drawing of Continuous Conveyor Belt SystemPicture 3 Crusher Picture $ Mucking in face and the blasting excavation system in the method of excavation. But the size of the muck generated in ordinary excavating a tunnel is too big to move on the conveyor belt. The equipment, a crusher, which crushes the muck to the size which can put on the conveyor belt is needed. The equipment which leads the conveyor belt according to extension of face is a tail-piece. The crawler mounting is selected so that it might be easy to move the crusher and the tail-piece. 3)Conveyance to a crusher ‘A muck generated by excavating in face is carried on the crusher with a wheel loader, and is directly thrown into the crusher. It is crushed down to the size under 200mm,which is 33% of the width of conveyor belt, and is then carried out by the conveyor belt. We have judged that the optimal distance of face to the crusher is 70~100m due to the delivery capacity of the wheel loader, the strength of the muck and the power of the crusher, 4)Extension time of the conveyor belt Picture 4 Tail-piece Picture 6 Throw into the crusher The conveyance distance from face to the crusher becomes longer as face progresses. Therefore, after progressing to some extent, it is necessary to extend the crusher and the tail-piece so that working efficiency does not decrease. Depending on digging Progress, conveyance distance and workability of extension, we extend it 30~40m. On the actual result of this section, we carry out extension in two weeks on the average. Working time for extending the crusher and the tail-piece takes 6 hours. '5)Support structure of the conveyor belt In the completion part of excavation, the almost structure of the conveyor belt is supported by a bracket and chain at side wall. The bracket is welded to a steel support, and it is sustained with a chain. (Figured and Picture7) In addition, since the surrounding ground is poor. which caused the tunnel squeezing, a residual deformation still remains. Therefore, lining conerete could not be placed. Usually, in the completion partVentilation Pipe Truck Miser 00 m0 Figure 4 Support structure in main tunnel of lining concrete. it is the structure which fixes a bracket on the side of lining conerete. In this case, the influence is expected on lining concrete by vibration on the conveyor belt and the load to support. By monitoring it has been verified that this influence was small. 6)Influence on the invert work In order to construct the invert simultaneously with the excavation work, we used the invert bridge. As for the side-movable invert pier, we were worried that the work area becomes too narrow by installing the continuous conveyor belt on the tunnel side wall and it affected the invert work. But we made the ‘overhang from the side wall as small as possible, and used a slide-arm-type back hoe. As the result, we were able to do easily the excavation of the central part Also, since the dump trucks no longer run from Picture 8 Influence on the invert work Picture 7 Support structure face, the movement of vehicles are only truck mixers for shoterete. So, since the excavating invert and placing invert concrete has been not influenced by the excavation work of face, working efficiency improves considerably. Picture 8 Influence on the invert work 7)Conveyor belt in the inclined tunnel Since methane was generated in this tunnel, the ventilation pipe of © 1800 was required to clear the tunnel face. Moreover, it was necessary to place two of this ventilation pipe in the inclined tunnel because of simultaneous multi-face excavation. The special support structure with a bracket, as shown in Figures and Pictured, was newly designed and adopted to secure the space for vehicles, such as truck mixers CONCLUDING REMARKS& s Truck Mixer ‘Ventilation Pipe £ = = =a $< 'Veniation Pipe For Nagano 3280 Figure 5 Support structure in inclined tunnel ‘This section has the construction conditions af long tunnel, simultaneous multi-face excavation and the long inclined tunnel connected to the main tunnel. For the safety of construction and consideration of the tunnel interior environment, we adopted the continuous conveyor belt system as a mucking system. And we completed excavating the main tunnel (L=3800m) in September, 2004. In evaluating the performance of the continuous conveyor belt system in this tunnel, the following observations are made by comparing with a rubber-tire system. (1) The environment inside the tunnel is kept to be good due to fewer traffies of large mucking trucks, which generate pollution by soot, CO and other hazardous substances. (2) The system is safe with few chances of vehicle accidents due to light traffic, especially in the tunnel face area with no traffic of mucking trucks. (3) In the inclined tunnel, this system is safe although it is 719m-long in a small section with a 12%-steep slope. (4) The tunnel invert is kept in good condition with little ‘maintenance/repair cost due to light traffic of large vehicles But, there are the following phenomenon in this section because it is easily influenced by rock quality (1) In the excavation by the twin header, it is usually ‘thought that the crusher is unnecessary, since muck is crushed finely. But, in the case of the cracky and discontinuious rock, a fairly large block was, generated along with a crack, We think that it is, Picture 9 Support structure better to use the erusher rather than ta crumble it into small pieces with a breaker. (2) The fine particles of rock are generated when muck is carried to the crusher from face by using the ‘wheel loader and is thrown into the crusher. We cope with this by using the watering utility and the local dust collector. (3) Since a depressed block can tend to be clogged in the hopper, sometimes it overflows from it. We cope with this by installing a sensor to check the clogging (4) In soft mudstone section, if there is inflow water at face, muck may tend to adhere to the conveyor belt or the hopper. And the sensor system also works well to inform the clogging. There are still few track record of the continuous conveyor belt system. Since there are a lot of advantages, the adoption of this system in a long tunnel is hereafter expected.