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Geomechanical Evaluation of Derinkuyu Antique Underground City and its Implications in Geoengineering

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Abstract

Derinkuyu Underground City, located in the Cappadocia Region of Turkey, is an important structure not only for its antique and archaeological characteristics, but also as a structure in terms of the long-term stability of underground rock structures excavated by mankind. The authors carried out some observational, experimental and theoretical rock mechanics studies in the region from 1996 in the context of a research project supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan for the assessment of the long-term behaviour of Derinkuyu Underground City, and these studies are still continuing. In addition to the monitoring of the environmental conditions such as temperature, moisture and air pressure, they also installed acoustic emission (AE) and electrical potential (EP) measurement systems to monitor the behaviour and response of the surrounding rock at the fifth and seventh floors of the underground city. In this article, the geology, seismicity and state of stress of the Cappadocia Region, climatic conditions in the underground city and its vicinity, short- and long-term behaviours of the surrounding rock, its index and mechanical properties, and effects of water content and freezing–thawing processes were investigated. The stability of Derinkuyu Underground City was also evaluated using theoretical and numerical methods, and the results were presented. Furthermore, its implications in modern geoengineering are also discussed.

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Acknowledgments

This work is a part of a joint research program focusing on the environmental study on Underground City Derinkuyu, Central Turkey [MONBUSHO (currently called MONBUGAKUSHO) Research Project No: 09044154]. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the support provided by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MONBUSHO). In addition, the authors would like to express their appreciation to Halis Yenipınar, past Director of Nevşehir Museum, and the staff of Derinkuyu Underground City for their kind understanding and help throughout this study, and to Prof. M. Tsujimoto of Tokyo Science University, Prof. E. Yüzer and Prof. M. Erdoğan (İstanbul Technical University) for promoting this project and initial investigations, Prof. H. Tano and Prof. H. Watanabe (Nihon University), Prof. T. Ito (Toyota National College) and Prof. T. Seiki (Utsunomiya University) from Japan for their kind help during the environmental monitoring studies, stress measurements by the AE method and time-dependent laboratory tests, and to Prof. A. Temel of Hacettepe University (Turkey) for his kind help in the XRD analyses.

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  1. Ocean Research Institute, Tokai University, Shizuoka, Japan

    Ömer Aydan

  2. Geological Engineering Department, Hacettepe University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

    Reşat Ulusay

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  1. Ömer Aydan
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Correspondence to Ömer Aydan.

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Aydan, Ö., Ulusay, R. Geomechanical Evaluation of Derinkuyu Antique Underground City and its Implications in Geoengineering. Rock Mech Rock Eng 46, 731–754 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-012-0301-7

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