Geophysical technologies are used to mitigate geological hazard caused by adverse geological conditions in front of a tunnel face. The prevailing method for forward probing for tunnels constructed by a tunnel boring machine (TBM) for advance prediction is based on seismic detection. Conventional tunnel seismic prediction technology uses P- and S-waves with sources fired on the tunnel wall or face and layout receivers on the tunnel wall to acquire the reflected waves. However, the results show that most of these methods have different deficiencies that are in either low detection accuracy, short detection depth, and/or multiplicity in imaging. This paper proposes a new high resolution tunnel advance prediction technology on the face based on 3D seismic wave detection. It arranges the 3D high-density source and recording geometry on the tunnel face to receive reflected P-waves for 3D imaging. By using the 3D numerical simulation, we first analyze the energy distribution and propagation characteristics of the wave field, which proves that our method is feasible. Compared with the conventional technologies, the seismic energy propagating towards the tunnel face is stronger and produces rich reflected information. The reflected wave has the advantages of bandwidth, strong energy and little interferences from surface wave, so that the seismic phases are easy to be identified. On this basis, we present the high resolution true 3D prediction technology to obtain more comprehensive and abundant azimuth information. Our approach is further validated by an application experiment in a real-world engineering project of water conveyance tunnel. The results show that the new technique has a greater detection length, higher detection accuracy and more reliable imaging results.
The active layer thickness (ALT) is affected by local soil material and surface vegetation coverage in Tibetan plateau permafrost region. The human activities and engineering construction along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway (QTH) destroyed the surface vegetation coverage, which have seriously influenced the ALT and heat exchange balance. Meanwhile, the changes of the detailed internal structure in the active layer will affect the stability of engineering infrastructure. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was used to detect the ALT in the permafrost region. However, researches on the detailed structure of the active layer and spatial variation information of ALT are rare, the main reason given for this is that the lack of advanced imaging techniques to enhance the GPR images. In this paper, the researchers focus on solving this problem by applying the reverse time migration (RTM) method to GPR field data acquired in the Beiluhe region. Analyses of the results led to conclusions as follows: a) The RTM algorithm is proved to be accurate for imaging the characteristics of the active layer through the dielectric constant model obtained by common midpoint and GPR data velocity analysis. b) The result of RTM profiles show the loose structure and graben-like fine internal structure. Combining with drill data and soil materials information, the researchers deduce the graben-like structure might be coarse gravel layer, which may be related to subgrade settlements in some local area. c) The 2D contour maps not only show the spatial variation feature of ALT at two sides of the highway, but also can compensate the defect of the research for single 2D survey line. The ALT is about 0.6~0.8 m in most areas, and about 0.8~0.9 m near the highway at west side of the QTH on the 2D contour maps. From the RTM interpretation profile, the closer to the plash, the deeper thawed active layer. The detailed internal structure of the active layer and 2D contour maps of ALT have great significance for the study of fine internal structure and the characteristic of ALT spatial variation in the Tibetan plateau under the background of climatic change.
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