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Large Deformation Characteristics and Reinforcement Measures for a Rock Pillar in the Houziyan Underground Powerhouse

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Abstract

The underground powerhouse of the Houziyan Hydropower Station is under the conditions of high geo-stress and a low strength/stress ratio, which leads to significant rock deformation and failures, especially for rock pillars due to bidirectional unloading during the excavation process. Damages occurred in thinner rock pillars after excavation due to unloading and stress concentration, which will reduce the surrounding rock integrity and threaten the safety of the underground powerhouse. By using field investigations and multi-source monitoring data, the deformation and failure characteristics of a rock pillar are analyzed from the tempo-spatial distribution features. These results indicate that significant deformation occurred in the rock pillar when the powerhouse was excavated to the fourth layer, and the maximum displacement reached 107.57 mm, which occurred on the main transformer chamber upstream sidewall at an elevation of 1721.20 m. The rock deformation surrounding the rock pillar is closely related to the excavation process and has significant time-related characteristics. To control large deformation of the rock pillar, thru-anchor cables were used to reinforce the rock pillar to ensure the stability of the powerhouse. The rock deformation surrounding the rock pillar decreases gradually and forms a convergent trend after reinforcement measures are installed based on the analysis of the temporal characteristics and the rock pillar deformation rate.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51679158) and the Science Foundation for Excellent Youth Scholars of Sichuan University (2013SCU04A07). Critical comments by the anonymous reviewers greatly improved the initial manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Xin-hong Xiao, Feng Dai, Hai-bo Li & Jia-wen Zhou

  2. Dadu River Hydropower Development Company, LTD, Chengdu, 610016, People’s Republic of China

    Pei-wei Xiao

  3. College of Water Resource and Hydropower, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, People’s Republic of China

    Feng Dai

  4. Sinohydro Bureau 7 CO. LTD, Power Construction Corporation of China, Chengdu, 610081, People’s Republic of China

    Xue-bin Zhang

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  1. Xin-hong Xiao
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  2. Pei-wei Xiao
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  3. Feng Dai
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  4. Hai-bo Li
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  5. Xue-bin Zhang
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  6. Jia-wen Zhou
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Correspondence to Jia-wen Zhou.

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Xiao, Xh., Xiao, Pw., Dai, F. et al. Large Deformation Characteristics and Reinforcement Measures for a Rock Pillar in the Houziyan Underground Powerhouse. Rock Mech Rock Eng 51, 561–578 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1329-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1329-5

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