Quantitative Geotechnical Risk Management for Tunneling Projects in China

To date, the tunneling in China is experiencing an age of fast development for decades. The potential risks behind the huge amount of construction and operation works in China was first formally realized and managed after 2002. The transition of risk assessment from a qualitative manner to a quantitative manner is on the way from the research gradually to the practice. This paper tries to share some experiences in the quantitative risk management for tunneling in China by introducing novel techniques and associated practical applications. The fuzzy fault tree analysis is used for hazard identification, the conditional Markov chain for probability analysis of soil spatial uncertainty, the quantitative vulnerability analysis for consequence evaluation and the field data based statistics for environmental impact risk analysis. All these novel methods have been validated successfully by applying into real cases shown in the paper. The dynamic feature of risk management is appreciated due to the different stages and scenarios of a tunnel project. The real-time monitoring technique developed using the LEDs and MEMS coupled with WSN could visualize the risk to the worker on site timely. The resilience analysis model to incorporate the high-impact low-chance risk for tunnel lining structure is introduced in the end of paper, which could assist the engineers to make the decision on performance recovery strategies once the tunnel goes through a significant disruption.