North American Microtunneling

2012 Industry Review

FIGURE 1
MTBM choked with
gravel and cobbles

TECHNICAL PAPER
Microtunneling in Gravel, Cobbles and Boulders
By Steven Hunt and Don Del Nero

erhaps the most challenging

ground condition for microtunneling is a full face of wet,
cohesionless, high permeability gravel with cobbles and boulders

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(GCB). This ground condition increases the risk of potential impacts such
as: a jammed excavation chamber (see
Figure 1); high torque and microtunnel boring machine (MTBM) stalling;

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excessive overmining resulting in lost

ground settlement damage or sinkholes; significant MTBM advance rate
reductions; excessive abrasion damage
to cutters, cutterhead, rock crusher, in-

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take ports, and slurry mucking system;

and impact vibration damage to MTBM
gears and bearings. The risk of these
potential impacts may make microtunneling inadvisable, but at least necessitate use of special measures to help
make microtunneling more manageable. Comments on the challenges of
microtunneling in GCB and potential
solutions to mitigate risk are discussed
below.

Groundwater Conditions
Wet, cohesionless, high permeability
GCB tends to cause several important
geotechnical challenges. This ground
condition has one of the lowest standup
times possible. As the groundwater head
increases, the standup time decreases
and challenges of providing face stability increase. Unbalanced heads as small
as 1 m (0.1 bar) can cause flowing
ground and overmining. Overmining or
ingesting more ground than displaced
by the MTBM and jacked pipe tends to
cause excessive settlements and excessive flow of ground into the excavation
chamber.
In order to apply an effective face
pressure when tunneling in open gravel or GCB, the subsurface investigation
program and geotechnical instrumentation should adequately indicate the
range in permeability expected and
groundwater pressure to be resisted. In
many cases, too few piezometers are installed and permeability tests performed
to adequately predict groundwater conditions along the entire alignment.

Prevention of flowing ground and

overmining is much more difficult. The
muck conveyance slurry must have
sufficient viscosity and other properties to form a filter cake at the heading. A thorough discussion of slurries
for microtunneling and recommendations for slurry properties for various
soil types are given in a 2011 paper by
Boyce et al [1].
The muck conveyance slurry for microtunneling in gravel with less than
10 percent fines (< 10 percent passing
the No. 200 sieve), should not be water/soil-only slurry. If the slurry is too
thin and a filter cake is not formed, the
slurry will excessively flow into the
ground and only provide resistance
from seepage pressure. Adequate pressure to resist ground flow will not develop. While water/soil slurry may be
suitable for microtunneling in clayey
or silty ground, it is not suitable in high
permeability, cohesionless soils with
less than 10 percent fines. A properly

designed bentonite slurry or bentonitepolymer-additive slurry should be used

when microtunneling in high permeability gravel to mitigate risk of overmining, a jammed excavation chamber and
a stalled MTBM.

Cutterhead Opening
The cutterhead opening ratio (COR),
which is the percentage of open area
on the cutterhead, and size and distribution of openings from the center
are critically important considerations
for microtunneling in GCB. MTBMs
typically have CORs ranging from 20 to
more than 50 percent. Larger CORs are
desired in cohesive soils (firm or slow
raveling ground) and smaller CORs in
cohesionless soils (flowing or fast raveling ground).
Where the ground has sufficiently
low permeability, no active groundwater head and sufficient strength to be
stable in an open-face condition, a larger COR is also desired in GCB with a

Face Pressure and

MTBM Slurry
Presuming that permeability and
groundwater head are adequately
known, the next challenge is to apply
an effective face pressure that minimizes overmining. To be effective, the
face pressure must be at least equal to
the groundwater pressure at invert plus
a component for active earth pressure.
This is a very difficult task in very high
permeability ground, which can generally be assumed to be ground with a
permeability of 10-2 cm/sec or more.
Counterbalancing the water pressure
can be readily achieved by pressurizing
the excavation chamber to the required
level regardless of the slurry mixture being used.

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North American Microtunneling

clast volume ratio less than 2-3 percent
(clast volume ratio is the total volume
of cobbles and boulders as a percentage of excavated volume). Larger cutterhead openings increase the size of
clasts that can be passed and minimize
the amount of cobble and boulder
fracturing required by cutters to be
passable into the excavation chamber.
While a larger COR helps reduce cutter and cutterhead wear and damage, it
may increase rock crusher wear since
more commutation energy must be expended to reduce rock clasts to gravel
size for flow through intake ports and
slurry-muck pumping. A larger COR
also helps prevent clay clogging at the
cutterhead opening.
In high-permeability GCB with a
meter or more of groundwater head
resulting in potentially flowing or fast
raveling ground, a smaller COR is likely needed to help reduce the flow of
ground into the MTBM chamber and
thereby reduce the risk of excessive
torque and stalling. The use of thick
bentonite slurry or bentonite slurry
with polymer or fiber additives may be
suitable for small pockets of gravel or
high permeability ground, but may not
be sufficient to prevent the excavation
chamber from getting jammed with
excessive cobbles and boulders. Furthermore, use of a smaller COR helps
reduce dependence on the slurry mix
design and ability to rapidly adjust it in
changing ground conditions.
Considerable energy is required to
crush cobbles and boulders to gravel
size for passage through intake ports,
slurry lines, elbows, valves and pumps
to a separation plant. MTBMs have
limited power and torque for use in
turning the cutterhead and in crushing rocks within the excavation chamber. In GCB, the volume of cobbles
and boulders that enter the chamber
must be limited to reduce the commutation energy demand and prevent
excessive torque and stalling.
Based on experience from several
projects, Hunt and Del Nero 2012 [2]
suggested cutterhead opening ratio
limits for clast volume ratios ranging
from 10 to greater than 40 percent.
Where the clast volume ratio exceeds
10 percent, CORs should be reduced
to 25 percent or less and may need
to be in the range of 10 to 20 percent. Where the ground permeabil-

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ity is higher, the risk that bentonite

slurry will be thick enough is lower
and as a result, the COR should be
lower (closer to 10 percent). Where
the ground permeability is lower, the
risk that the bentonite slurry viscosity is inadequate is lower and the COR
may be higher (closer to 20 percent).
Cutterhead opening size and configuration should be optimized for the
size, distribution, and geometry of
the clasts anticipated and the range
of soil matrix conditions expected.
For instance, if the clasts tend to be
planar, then several smaller openings
may not be the best geometry even
though the cutterhead opening ratio
is suitable.

MTBM Torque
The thrust and torque required for an
MTBM to effectively advance through
GCB is dependent on many factors including: soil density; clast volume ratios;
clast sizes and strengths; energy required
to fracture, pluck and crush clasts; muck
flow friction in the MTBM chamber; intakes and slurry mucking system; and
friction between the ground and MTBM
and jacked pipe. GCB with higher density or that is weakly cemented tends
to increase the torque required to cut,
pluck and pass cobbles and boulders.
As the clast volume ratio increases, the
torque required increases. In addition
to clast volume ratios, the size and unconfined compressive strength of the
clasts also influences torque demand.
A boulder will generally require more
torque to cut and pluck than scattered
cobbles for the same clast volume ratio.
Torque spikes above that required for
general excavation will result when the
cutters impact boulders at the face. The
sustained energy and torque required to
cut and fracture or pluck clasts at the
heading increases as the unconfined
compressive strength of the rock increases [2].
After cobbles and boulders are partially cut, plucked and passed into the
MTBM excavation chamber, the energy
required to crush the clasts to a gravel
size for slurry mucking is very high and
increases with both increasing clast volume ratio and increasing unconfined
compressive strength of the clasts.
Torque spikes may also occur when a
large, high strength clast is engaged by
the rock crusher.

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2012 Industry Review

The friction of the slurry and muck
rotating through the MTBM crusher
and flowing to intake ports is much
higher than normal when boring in
GCB. It increases as the clast volume
ratio increases. Higher friction and
resistance to muck flow also results
in higher torque demand. Use of an
appropriately designed bentonite or
bentonite-polymer-additive slurry helps
lubricate the muck and to reduce the
muck resistance to flow and torque demand. In addition to reducing friction,
the bentonite also helps to reduce abrasive wear of the rock crusher, intakes
and slurry mucking system [3].
When microtunneling in GCB with a
clast volume ratio greater than 10 percent, the selected MTBM should be provided with the highest torque available
from manufacturers for the excavated
diameter and anticipated speed. MTBM
upsizing via skinning up should not be
allowed. Specifying or at least strongly
suggesting use of the maximum available torque for the planned excavated
diameter is strongly recommended to
help reduce the risk of stalling in this
ground condition.

Abrasion and Wear

Another potential consequence of
using water/soil-only conveyance slurry in ground with a gravel matrix and
cobbles and boulders is excessive abrasion, cutter impact damage and wear.
GCB muck within water/soil slurry
without bentonite is much more abrasive than in bentonite slurry. A more
abrasive slurry results in higher MTBM
torque and higher rates of wear of the
rock crusher bars and arms, the chamber slurry intake ports, the slurry pump
and slurry return lines, particularly at
pipe bends. Severe intake port wear
from crushed GCB may cause MTBM
slurry lines to become jammed and advance stopped.
When clast volume ratios are in the
range of approximately 3 to 10 percent
within a gravel matrix, measures such as
use of engineered bentonite-polymeradditive slurry and cutterhead opening
ratio reduction are likely needed. When
clast volume ratios exceed 10 percent
and very abrasive gravel and clasts are
expected, microtunneling should be
avoided unless special measures are
provided to manage the abrasion and
stalling risks. These measures might

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include: a combination head with disk

cutters; cutterhead and crusher armoring; use of bentonite-polymer-additive
slurry; use of larger intake ports and
slurry lines; use of intake port surface
hardening; and minimum TBM cutterhead torque requirements.

Summary of Potential
Mitigation Measures for
Microtunneling in GCB
The risks of microtunneling in GCB
can be mitigated by a variety of potential measures. To microtunnel in highpermeability gravel and to reduce risk of
choking and stalling along with the risk
of severe overmining and sinkholes, the
flow of ground through the cutterhead
into the excavation chamber must be
restricted to a rate that the rock crusher
and slurry mucking system can handle by
one or more of the following methods:

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permeability and increase strength.

ting stuck or encountering severe

impacts.

mer-additive conveyance slurry (not

water/soil slurry) that is thick enough
to form a filter cake.

Steven Hunt, P.E., and Don Del

Nero, P.E., C.D.T., are with CH2M
HILL.

face equal to at least the groundwater
pressure and estimated active earth
pressure.

sizes and cutterhead opening ratio to

less than normal.

and has the maximum torque available from manufacturers for that diameter.
These and other special measures
discussed above should help make
microtunneling in GCB more manageable and minimize the risk of get-

References
Boyce G.,Wolski M., Zavitz R. & Camp
C. 2011. Chemistry And Physics Behind
Microtunnel Slurries, Proceedings of
North American No-Dig 2011, NASTT,
paper A-2-01, (2011.6) 10p.
Hunt S.W. & Del Nero, 2011. Microtunneling in Cobbles and Boulders. Microtunneling Short Course,
Colorado School of Mines, Golden,
CO. 36p.
Milligan G.W.E., 2000. Lubrication
and soil conditioning in pipe jacking
and microtunnelling. Tunnels & Tunnelling International, July 2000, pp.
22-24.

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