A Study on the Pattern of Tunnel Collapse in Weathered Rockmass

Recently, highway tunnel construction has rapidly been increased due to the limited ground usage and geographical characteristic in Korea, i.e. Korea consists of 70% mountains. In this paper, it was analyzed tunnel collapse patterns in the weathered rockmass. Recent tunnel collapse pattern is quite different from that of past ten years. Tunnels in past years have been collapsed at shallow valley area because of shear strength decrease after heavy rain. Tunnels, which have been constructed recently, were collapsed at even the deeper ground position after primary support. Also in the case that proper reinforcement was not applied, it caused excessive crack at shotcrete and local collapse near tunnel face. In this paper, it was analysed the cause of the recent tunnel collapses and proper reinforcement for the collapsed tunnels.