Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Singular portals. Yanango Tunnel.

S. Sánchez Rodríguez
Geoconsult España Ingenieros consultores, Madrid, Spain.
M. Prieto Domínguez
Geoconsult España Ingenieros consultores, Lima, Perú.
E. V. Silva Espiña
Geoconsult España Ingenieros consultores, Madrid, Spain.

ABSTRACT: The excavation and reinforcement of the portals is the first phase in the construction of
tunnels. Both the topography as well as the geology of the area should be taken into consideration
when designing the portals, addressing a series of specific problems different to that of the
excavation of the tunnels. The construction of the portals in mountainous environments, with steep
slopes and small areas to work, can result in the excavation of large clearings that can negatively
affect the overall stability of the slope in the long term. This creates the need to adapt the portal
designs to each specific situation, ensuring long-term stability of the excavation and trace criterions.
Thus, in this paper, various real cases of excavations in areas with very poor terrain and hillside
excavations will be presented with design solutions that were different than those used normally.

Different kind of difficult conditions appear

in tunnel portals but when bringing special or
1 INTRODUCTION singular problems one or more of the following
factors play a key role:
Portal excavation and support are the first steps - Special constraints related to alignment and
for tunnel boring and also key and singular geometry (restricted clearance, skew, etc…).
points in them. Unfortunately many problems - Half slope tunnel conditions:
and incidents during tunnel construction are • Hill Slide potential existing prior to
related with portals. tunnelling.
Thus, portal design should always be adapted • Reduced or poor rock buttress available on
to topography of the area as well as geological the downhill side.
local and specific conditions which may differ - Low cover/overburden conditions with
from the general conditions and problems to be problems to get some rock/soil ‘arch effect’.
encountered during tunnel boring. - Thick layers of unstable (usually water
Construction of mountain tunnel portals with bearing) soft soil deposits.
restrictions of access and available land as well Table Nº 1, included below, tries to classify
as steep slopes can result in high and in detail different types of portal special
complicated cuttings. conditions and common problems usually found
Above mentioned circumstances bring the during design and construction phases in order
need of site specific designs adapted to to help to understand complexity of these tunnel
environmental legal constraints and alignment elements.
requirements along with long term slope In general, conditions related with slope
stability verification. stability and tunnel-slope intersection must be
In fact, tunnel portal excavations can be the studied in detail but it is quite common that
only difficult or problematic works when slope stability problems finally cause difficult
tunnelling on soils and rock masses showing tunnel boring work and vice versa.
favorable geotechnical conditions.
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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Therefore, unless cost estimations and Table 1. Common problems and special
designs carried out during tunnel planning conditions in tunnel portals
consider as much of these factors as possible Reduced
and are made with sufficient data available, intermediate
buttress or
important and difficult to support excavations pillar in twin
can result. At the same time, specially tight Complex tunnels
environmental restrictions can bring costly and Alignment Twin tunnels
difficult boring conditions during first part of at different
tunnels related with the need of installation of level
heavy support and also pre-support to stabilize Skew
conditions
the face. High Stres
Definitely, tunnel portal design and Lateral
construction must commonly deal with the buttress or
combination or choice of heavy tunnel supports pilar
and robust slope stabilization, having always in Hillslope or
‘Half tunnel’
mind environmental restrictions. configuration
topographic
Great number of the above mentioned effects. Aximetry. High cutting
GENERAL
uphill side.
conditions or potential problems was found in Cutting at
the recent case story shown in this paper and different
related with the portal construction of the section (Twin
Yanango tunnel en Peru. tunnels)
Conditions encountered during design were Low overburden Arch effect
much different from the usually expected or Potential damage
to adjacent
desired and imposed unfavorable locations. buildings, utilities
Both portals of this tunnel shown half slope and transport.
geometries and while entrance portal was Need of
excavated in soil, exit portal was located on a Construction
operation
competent steep rockmass. areas for
Logistics
Therefore, whilst geotechnical designers are storage,
parking, etc…
aware of the importance of tunnel axes Proximity to
orthogonal to hillsides, in this case alignment Debris-flow
streams or gullies
engineers had to deal with restrictions of Global stability
different kind which brought skewed portals in Existing slides
both cases and bad ground conditions in the prior to
entrance. construction.
SOIL Water bearing
Due to the above mentioned circumstances coluvial or
Yanango Tunnel portals showed different residual deposits.
characteristics and singular problems in each Expansive
case, so that solutions usually or commonly residual soils.
implemented could not be used in this case. Planar, wedge or
Different
GEOCONSULT INGENIEROS mechanisms
toppling failures.
in each plane
CONSULTORES is part of the Joint Venture or cutting
‘Construction Supervision of the Yanango Rockfall
Tunnel’ which was awarded with the contract Faulted or
“Construction Supervision of the Yanango ROCK
heterogeneous
Tunnel and accesses” by the Peruvian conditions
Administration PROVÍAS NACIONAL of the Changing or
Transport and Communications Ministry in heterogeneous
rock weathering
November 2014. Because of this role, the profile
authors took part actively in the review and new Soil-rock contact
designs and construction phases. failures.

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

2 YANANGO TUNNEL conditions with very steep hills and no

possibilities of enlarging the platform.
Future Yanango Tunnel shall be located at First portal (southwest side) is the one known
chainage 77+100 of the Las Vegas – Tarma – as tunnel entrance whilst the second in the San
La Merced road in San Ramón District of the Ramón side (Northeast) is the exit portal.
Chanchamayo Province (Junín Department in
Peru). Total tunnel length is 1.025,60 m.
During November 2005 a sudden and huge 3 ENTRANCE PORTAL
debris-flow episode (‘Huayco’) took place due
to intense rainfall in the area. This caused the Dealing with thick coluvial deposit was the key
collapse of the existing bridge and blocked the issue during design review of the entrance
road (see Figure 1). portal.
Tender design proposed a half slope portal
affecting only colluvial deposits with a cutting
45 m high and no support of any kind (see
Figure 3).
Design also considered the construction of a
cut and cover section after finishing the mined
tunnel, resulting a final cutting height of 30 m.
In above mentioned conditions, first section
of the mined tunnel had to be bored as well on
colluvial deposits, with heavy support.

Figure 1. Collapse of the existing bridge after the 2005

‘huayco’.

As temporary solution (see Figure 2),

PROVÍAS built upstream a new cable bridge
with a span of 107 m but limited to low weight
vehicles (30 t). Heavy vehicles must use a
crossing in the river which is unsafe and causes
delays and discomfort.

Figure 3. Cross section of the entrance portal with original

tender design at ch of maximum height.

Having in mind alignment specifications,

budget restrictions in order not to increase
tunnel length, as well as slope stability and
portal excavation conditions improvement, an
Figure 2. Existing bridge for low weight vehicles. alignment modification was carried out.
Nevertheless, though the optimum
In these circumstances and with the aim of configuration should have avoided colluvial
providing a definitive solution, the Yanango deposits totally, this was not possible due to the
tunnel was designed as a new route variant of above mentioned restrictions.
the existing road.
Two portals very skewed with the
topography are required due to the mountain

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Thus, new design tried to minimize cutting Selfdrilling bolts were of 1,5” section and
height as well as start tunnel boring in the rock had lengths of 6, 9 and 12 m. Pull tests were
mass instead the colluvial. These two targets carried out on these bolts obtaining quite good
were achieved separating alignment axe from results with 100% of tested units accepted. It
the hill. New geometry adopted considered the must be underlined that on frontal slope bolts
construction of cutting 35 m high and 110 m were anchored in rock from bank F down.
long approximately. It must be underlined the Additionally, pipe drains of 50 mm and
difficult conditions for the colluvial deposit legnths of 6 and 9 m were installed with
geomechanical characterization due to it coarse hotizontal and vertical spacing of 4 m. These
granular nature. drains were installed with the aim of avoiding
Besides, cut and cover filling was modified pore pressures on the wall.
in order to reduce asymmetry by covering both During excavation a thorough monitoring
sides of the structure and also the long term work was carried out (see Figure 5). This
final cutting height was reduced to 25 m above consisted on the supervision of 1 inclinometer
the filling (see Figure 4). installed on the highest section of the cutting, as
Even with the new proposal, main problem well as the systematic topographic control of
was colluvial soil excavation and support as in targets distributed on the cutting. Wall state and
the original design. Nevertheless, ground behavior conditions were extensively controlled
excavation volume was lower in the new during all process.
solution as well as the reduced height allowed to
ease construction.

Figure 5. Location of the topographic control targets.

Thus, inclinometer progress showed a

homogeneous displacement in all ground
located above each excavation level of 3 mm
per phase. Maximum registered displacement
was of 65 mm at the base of the second bank.
Topographic control showed a maximum
Figure 4. Construction phases of the entrance portal. horizontal displacement of 100 m at the base of
the top bank as well as average velocities of 1-2
New slope design adopted a 1H:4V mm/day during excavation.
inclination and 2 m high cutting before support Maximum recorded velocities were slightly
installation. Every 4 m bank a small berm was above 4 mm/day. This implied increasing the
done in the slope. control during all phases as well as their
Installed support consisted on an achored modification in order to minimize displacements
Wall made by 40 t selfdrilling bolts and 20 cm on the cutting.
of shotcrete reinforced with 2 layers of welded Displacements progress was stopped when
wire mesh. excavation on colluvial deposits finished;
During first phases of excavation, this was showing a stable configuration in all the cutting.
carried out completing level by level. Finally, geological conditions encountered
Nevertheless, as total excavation cutting was were better than initially expected since rock
going higher, every level was splitted in small mass was reached in the final bank instead the
cutting sections. Excavation of the following envisaged colluvial soil.
stage was only started once the support was
completely installed in the prior level.

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

After cutting excavation a cut and cover

tunnel 84 m long was built. All this section was
filled which helps to the global stability by
reducing the final maximum cutting height to 25
m.
Cutting excavation was started on February
2016 and finished in May whilst Cut&cover
tunnel filling was finished by November. This
way the sloped stability was improved prior to
rainy season worst period (see Figure 6).
No water table or continuous leakage was
detected in the cutting area during excavation
period. Nevertheless cut&cover was
waterproofed in all its length in order to avoid
rain water leakage and improve durability of the
structure.

4 EXIT PORTAL

Exit portal construction was carried out on

igneous rocks materials; specifically gneiss of
the Hucapistana formation was excavated.
Thus, main problem dealt on this exit portal
was the combination of very steep slopes and
alignment almost parallel to the hill.
For this geometrical configuration, original
design proposed almost vertical cutting which
reached a height of 80 m in some sections.
Figure 7 shows first boring work of the
Yanango tunnel where steep conditions of the
existing hill as well as installed presupport.
Due to the difficulties of excavating such a
cutting on an almost vertical hill without access
to the top of the excavation, a new design for
the portal cutting was carried out. Thus, exit
portal design was modified from a great and
complicated cutting design to a half tunnel
concept with minimum impact on the hill.
The final construction design consisted on a
half tunnel with a length of 50 m and a
maximum span of 12 m just before the start of
the full face tunnelling section.
Information regarding case stories and design
approaches for half tunnel solutions is quite
limited since this design option in not very
common.
On the other hand, in some areas like the
Himalayas (see Figure 8) this kind of tunnels is
even more common than full face tunneling or
cutting excavations. This is possible because
this kind of solution is less costly than the others Figure 6. Excavation phases of the entrance portal.
when rock mass quality is high.

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

On that same study the rock mass quality

index Q was correlated with the free
unsupported span of the half tunnels, obtaining
the following correlation:
Bht = 1.7 × Q 0.4
This relationship was similar with the one
proposed by Barton et al (1974) between the Q
index and the maximum unsupported span (B)
for ESR =1.
B = 2 × Q 0.4

Figure 7. Excavation Works starting in Yanango tunnel

exit portal.

Additionally, half tunnel construction helps

to reduce environmental impacts since trench
construction can bring high cuttings with great
visual impact as well as costly and difficult to
support in much cases.

Figure 9. Correlation between the half tunnel unsupported

span and the index Q.

As it can be seen in figure 8 correlation, rock

quality on the rock masses were the studied half
tunnels were located was high with Q values
above 15 points.
In the same way, in the sorroundings of the
Yanango tunnel there were some tunnels
excavated with similar methodology that the
one used in Yanango (see Figure 10). In these
cases rock quality indexes of 56 to 65 points of
RMR and 4 to 12 of Q index were measured.
These values were lower than those of the
Himalayas but these Peruvian cases were related
with half tunnels of limited length or minor
unsupported span.
Figure 8. Detail of half tunnel (Anbalagan et al 2003)

Anbalagan et al. (2003) carried out a detailed

study of the existing half tunnels on the
himalayas. He obtained that the rock mass
quality for the analyzed tunnels was in the range
of Q values from 18 to 38; that is to say that the
rock quality was classified as good (Barton et
al., 1974)

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Figure 11. Wall of the Bagasses in Congost dels Terradets

(Spain)

Thus, during the first analyses of the hill

where the exit portal had to be located, the rock
quality values obtained in different outcrops
along the road were in the range of 60 to 68
points of RMR and Q values of 10.
According to the previous relationships, cited
quality would allow maximum unsupported
spans of 4 m whilst it was planned up tu 12 m of
half tunnel span. Therefore, although rock mass
Figure 10. Half tunnels of road Tarma – La Merced and conditions were good they were not enough to
sorroundings. open the tunnel without additional support
measures.
Table 1. Basic characteristics of the half tunnels of road Though it can be considered that last meters
Tarma – La Merced and sorroundings. the section have de additional stabilizer
contribution of the frontal slope of the
Tunnel Litology Q index Unsupported excavation (3D effect), since the total length of
span (m) the stretch was 50 m, it can be considered that
La Virgen Tonalite- 11,5 10 conditions in the central section were equivalent
Granodiorite to the ones existing in half tunnels.
Pliegue Tonalite- 5,4 6
Due to the rock quality below the reference
Granodiorite safe values for this type of excavations (see
Velo de Tonalite- 4,3 4
Novia
figure 9) and kinematic analyses carried out
Granodiorite showing probability of wedge/block failure,
Pan de Tonalite- 12,5 10
Azúcar
excavation and support process based on the
Granodiorite following stages was designed:
- stage 1.- Presupport in crown all along the
There are some similar solutions to the one half tunnel stretch, executed from the hillside
of the Yanango tunnel in Spain (see Figure 11). and consisting on 2 rows of 10 m long bolts of 1
These cases of very skewed portals were solved ¼” diameter.
with a first half tunnel section prior to the full - Stage 2.- Excavation in round lengths of 2-3
face tunneling section. m maximum.
- Stage 3.- Tunnel excavation installing
support consisting on radial rock bolts 8 m long
in wall and crown and 10 cm of shotcrete.
- Stage 4.- Cut and cover section construction
after excavation by means of lattice girders,
welded wire mesh reinforcement, Bernold
sheets and shotcrete.

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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Design was checked during all construction

phase by means of an intensive control of joint
families in the rock mass in order to verify
design hypothesis as well as excavation stability
conditions during the process (see Figure 12).

Figure 12. Joint orientations measured during

construction of exit portal.

Figure 13 shows presupport 10 m long rock

bolts installed in the Crown. These were
installed to prevent block failure and overbreak.
Performance conditions of these rock bolts was
statistically controlled by means of pull out tests
which were passed in all cases. Figure 14. Exit portal excavation.

Table 12. Face conditions in the half tunnel section and

first meters of full face tunnel.
CH.. RMRb RMRc Q Excavation
77+788.55 61 56 2.5 9 m span
77+786.05 58 53 2.33 10 m span
77+783.59 55 45 0.8 10 m span
77+779.70 60 50 4.33 11 m span
77+777.45 57 52 4.66 12 m span
77+774.0 50 45 1 Full face
77+772.60 53 48 1.08 Full face
77+770.30 57 52 3.25 Full face

These indexes show homogenous conditions

a bit poorer than expected.
The only incident that took place during
Figure 13. Sketch of presupport and block failure in the excavation of the half tunnel section was the
exit portal.
failure of some small blocks at Ch. 77+790
where rock quality was a bit lower in the
Excavation was carried out by mechanical perimeter of excavation. However face
means when possible in order to avoid damage conditions showed closed joints and no
to rock mass. When this was not possible tunnel significant displacements during all process.
boring was done by drill and blast (see figure Thus, half tunnel portal was finished in
14). march 2016 without special difficulties and
Following table shows the rock quality in showing stable conditions until date (see figure
term of RMR and Q indexes obtained during the 15).
halft tunnel section and first meters of full face
tunneling.
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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Finally, a external waterproofing treatment which added complexity to design of the

was applied in order to limit leakage caused by sections.
runoff and protecting cut and cover structure Thus, both portals were carried out
from water. successfully thanks to the selection of adequate
construction methods along with intensive
construction monitoring and supervision that
allowed adapting the process to real ground
conditions.
In entrance portal, sequential cutting
excavation and intense monitoring for
continuous design checking appear to be the
adequate approach to guarantee global stability
of the slope.
In exit portal, previous analysis of ground
conditions combined with continuous survey of
face conditions to confirm design conditions
were an effective methodology to validate
adopted solution.
Detailed analyses carried out prior to
construction were essential in both cases.
During that period site specific conditions of
each portal and their particular problems were
analyzed, adopting Ad hoc solutions which tried
to minimize or eliminate the most unfavorable
characteristics of original designs and each area.
Although the design of solutions was not a
direct responsibility of supervision, a
collaborative attitude between the consortium
builder and the supervision consortium has
succeeded in achieving consensus solutions
better than originally designed, as well as a
proactive working climate in which deadlines
and budget have been fulfilled.
The main evidence observed after the designs
made is that the coordination between alignment
design and the available geological information
is fundamental to generate adequate solutions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was possible thanks to the work

done by all the Geoconsult Ingenieros
Consultores staff involved in the construction
Figure 15. Excavation sequence at exit portal.
supervision of the Yanango Tunnel.

5 CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES

Yanango tunnel is located in a mountain area Bhawani Singh. Professor (Retd),. IIT
where portal design showed difficulties different Roorkee. Rajnish K. Goel. VOLUME 5.
from the common ones in these type of works. Tunnelling in Weak Rocks. Scientist F. CMRI
Both portals presented a great number of factors Regional Centre. Roorkee, India.
Anbalagan, R., Singh, B. and Bhargava, P.
(2003). Half tunnels along hills roads of
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 Proceedings of the World Tunnel Congress 2017 – Surface challenges – Underground solutions. Bergen, Norway.

Himalaya. An innovative approach. Tunnelling

and Underground Space Technology, 18, 411-
419.
Barton, N.R., Lien, R. and Lunde, J. 1974.
Engineering classification of rock masses for
the design of tunnel support. Rock Mech. 6(4),
189-239.

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