Practical Guide to Rock Tunneling

This Practical Guide to Rock Tunneling fills an important void in the literature for a practical guide to the design and construction of tunnels in rock.

Practical Guide to Rock Tunneling takes the reader through all the critical steps of the design and construction for rock tunnels starting from geotechnical site investigations through to construction supervision. The guide provides suggestions and recommendations for practitioners on special topics of laboratory testing, durability of rock and acceptance for unlined water conveyance tunnels, overstressing or deep and long tunnels, risk-based evaluation of excavation methods, contract strategies, and post-construction inspections. Key considerations and lessons learned from selected case projects are presented based on the author’s extensive international experience of over 30 years and 1000 km of tunneling for civil, hydropower, and mining infrastructure, including some of the most recognized projects in the world to date.

Instead of revisiting all theory and concepts that can be found in other sources, this book contains the hard learned lessons from the author’s experience in the field of Rock Tunneling, gathered over 30 years of service.

Dean Brox has over 30 years of experience as a tunneling practitioner with more than 1200 km of major tunneling and infrastructure projects around the world. Dean graduated in 1985 from the Geological Engineering Program of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, in 1985 and obtained his Master in Science in Engineering Rock Mechanics with Distinction from Imperial College, London, in 1990. Dean started his career in underground mining rock mechanics in South Africa before moving into tunneling for civil engineering infrastructure projects around the world including the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, the Hong Kong Airport Core Projects, and the Gotthard Base Rail Tunnel in Switzerland. Dean has extensive experience with tunnels for hydropower projects and his areas of particular interest include high speed drill and blast excavation of long tunnels, long and deep TBM excavated tunnels, overstressing of deep or weak rock tunnels, asset performance of hydropower tunnels and TBM applicability assessments for mining projects. Dean practices as an independent consulting engineer and lives in Vancouver, Canada.