Tunnel engineering carves safe, durable passages through earth and rock for transit, water, and utilities — where ground conditions, machine performance, and ground support must be engineered in concert.
A GBR is the contractual ground truth between owner and contractor. I build the statistical and geological case behind baseline values — assembling boring data, lab results, and historic project performance to define expected ranges for ground behavior, water inflow, abrasivity, and obstructions. On the I-94 Stormwater Drainage Tunnel in Detroit, I analyzed boring logs and built statistical distributions of soil parameters to support GBR baselines.
From core logs and geologic mapping I compute Rock Mass Rating (Bieniawski) and the Q-system (Barton). These ratings drive empirical support selection — bolt spacing, shotcrete thickness, lattice girder or steel sets — and inform where the design transitions between ground classes. On the RDP Tribs & URDP CSO Storage Tunnel in St. Louis, I determined RMR from core logs and summarized ground support implications.
I process TBM production data — penetration rate, thrust, torque, cutterhead RPM, downtime codes — to evaluate machine performance against ground conditions. On the Lower Meramec Tunnel, I built organized TBM and environmental datasets that supported field decisions and reporting cycles.
Rock bolts, shotcrete, lattice girders, steel sets, segmental linings — each support class is selected against expected ground behavior and verified by convergence-confinement reasoning and field monitoring. The goal is a support system that is safe at the face, durable in service, and constructible at the working rate.