Abstract

Tunnels after serving period of time, need to be inspected and maintained for them to perform without any structural failure and posing no hazard to the ongoing traffic. Structural visual assessment of operational tunnel is carried out to understand and mitigate the cause of distress in tunnel lining. This paper focuses on the visual health assessment of tunnel to determine deterioration level of shotcrete tunnel lining by employing inspection manual of Federal Highway Authority (FHWA). A case study of multi-arch highway tunnel in Malaysia has been extensively surveyed for this paper. Three most widespread types of distress during inspection were found to be liner crack, water leakage and faulty construction joint. After detailed assessment it was found that in Tunnel 1,15% of the cracks were in rating 3 and 20% of cracks were in rating 4 for the Tunnel 2. Severe water leakage with rating 5 was spotted at 6 points on the construction joint of roof arch. The most severe leakage was observed mostly on the faulty construction joint. This study will be the recommendation to further enhance investigation of defect level by carrying out the detailed and technical inspection of the tunnel. This is important as to ensure the working condition of tunnel.

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