In-Situ Stress Measurements for Excavation of Deep Cavern

The world's largest nucleon decay experiment facility is constructed at a depth of approximately 1,000meters, in the Kamioka mine, Japan. Because of the character as a large cavern in deep underground, in-situ stress measurements were conducted to provide basic information for design of the cavern. Three overcoring methods were used: 8-element embedding gauges developed by Japanese Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry, hemispherical ended borehole technique with eight strain cross-gauges, and Hollow Inclusion Cell with 12 strain gauges. The principle stresses were not perfectly similar in each measurement. The average values of the 6 stress element were used to provide the direction and the magnitude of three principle stress.