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Rock mass behaviour of weathered, jointed and faulted Khondalite – Examples from the underground crude oil storage caverns in Visakhapatnam, India
Author(s) -
Millen Bernard,
Sigl Oskar,
HöferÖllinger Giorgio
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geomechanics and tunnelling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.317
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1865-7389
pISSN - 1865-7362
DOI - 10.1002/geot.201400013
Subject(s) - excavation , geology , rock mass classification , mining engineering , crude oil , wedge (geometry) , oil storage , geotechnical engineering , tonne , petroleum engineering , archaeology , geography , physics , optics
Abstract In 2008, Indian Strategic Petroleum Reserve Limited started construction of an underground unlined rock cavern complex for storage of imported crude oil at Visakhapatnam for 1.3 MMT (million metric tons) of crude oil. The excavation of the works was finally completed in February 2014. During the construction stage, after 95 % of the total excavation volume had already been excavated, an extreme wedge sliding event occurred in one of the cavern walls in April 2011, which caused a major delay to completion of the project. This wedge slide and other rock mass behaviour encountered during the excavation of the underground storage facility are described and discussed in this paper.