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Reuse of underground cavities

Antoine JAILLET
ENSMN: Ecole Nationale Suprieure des Mines de Nancy (Mines Nancy)
92 rue du sergent Blandan Campus Artem
CS 14234
54042 Nancy Cedex
France
Antoine.jaillet1@etu.univ-lorraine.fr
February 2014

RSUM. Cet article est consacr aux projets de rutilisation de la Carrire de la


Brasserie. Plusieurs projets concernent cette carrire situe sous le bois de Vincennes, avec
lamnagement dun muse, dune partie htelire, ainsi que dun stockage de vin. Cet
article prsentera ainsi les premiers lments de faisabilit lis limplantation de ces
projets en souterrain, en se concentrant tout particulirement sur la partie muse. Seront
ainsi traits les aspects normatifs et rglementaires ainsi que des aspects plus techniques lis
la gomtrie et ltat global de la carrire.
ABSTRACT. This article tackles the matter of reuse of the Carrire de la Brasserie. The
plans for this quarry, located underneath the Vincennes wood in Paris, encompass a
museum, a hotel as well as a wine storage facility. The point of this study is to draw the main
aspects concerning the implementation of these projects in an underground cavity, with a
particular focus on the museum part. The project will thus be treated according to the
standards regarding construction of public buildings, and more technical matters linked to
the geometry and the state of the quarry.
MOTS-CLS : ERP (Etablissement Recevant du Public), Carrire souterraine,
Gotechnique, Muse, Normes.
KEY WORDS:

Public building, Underground quarry, Geotechnics, Museum, Standards.

Reuse of underground cavities

1.

Introduction

1.1.

General context

The reuse of underground cavities has been extensively studied for the past
decades, with a little less than one hundred project being undertaken in more than
fifteen countries. In most projects, the underground cavities are used as storage (30%
of the cases), waste disposal (17%), for tourism (16%) or for cultures such as
mushrooms (13%).
This issue is quite significant in France, in Paris especially where a serious
amount of surface lies on underground quarries.
1.2.

Carrire de la Brasserie

The quarry studied in this project is the Carrire de la Brasserie, which is located
under the Vincennes wood. The quarrying was made on the limestone layer, which
was harnessed during the 18th and 19th centuries. The excavation was made using two
methods:
-

Room and pillar

Excavation and partial backfill supported by stone walls (hague et


bourrage)

The second method being the oldest of the two. After the mining was done, most of
the quarry was partially backfilled to reduce the ceiling height and improve pillar
resistance.
The quarry is currently unused except for limited visits and training from the
Inspection Gnrale des Carrires (IGC) which is in charge of the abandoned quarry.
The quarry is located 15 to 20m beneath the surface, for an area of 40 000 square
meters. It can be divided into three distinct zones that are:
-

The northern zone, harnessed by room and pillar method, it is as of now


the most damaged of the three zones, with extensive damage and
occasional collapse of the ceiling.

The central zone, which is the only zone that was exploited with a partial
backfill.

The southern zone, which is the largest of the three, was also harnessed by
the room and pillar method. It is generally speaking in good state.

For the project of reuse of the quarry, we will only consider the second zone as it
is in a relatively good state and occupies a vast surface.

Reuse of underground cavities

Figure 1. Schematics of the Carrire de la Brasserie


The northern sector is highlighted in red, the central sector in green and the
southern sector in bleu.

1.3.

Possible reuse scenarii

Three projects are currently considered:


-

A museum

A hotel

Reuse of underground cavities

A wine storage facility

The museum project is the most concrete of the three; the first ideas would be to
make a two sided museum, partly on the history and technics of mining in Paris, with
an actual part of the quarry being reused for this purpose (maybe including parts that
were harnessed using hague et bourrage method). The other part of the museum
would be a more classic museum, with temporary art exhibits. The museum would be
situated on the northernmost part of the southern sector.
The hotel would be partly depending on the museum part and would not be fully
separated.
As for the wine storage facility, it would on the other hand be fully autonomous
from the other two and be managed in a different way, maybe by a privately owned
company.

The first two projects are quite similar in the way that they are both open to the
public and would follow roughly the same standards, and could be managed by the
same structure.
As for the wine storage facility, it could be made using different systems; a
facility where the clients would store their own bottles in either rooms or shelves to
rent or a facility where the clients would only drop off their wine in a surface
building for them to be stored underground by employees. These two methods are
quite different for the use of the quarry as the first implies that people be let in the
quarry (with more stringent standards of safety) whereas the second solution would
only require the quarry to be a workplace.
On the following parts, we will study both the standards required for the building
of public facilities in the underground quarry (with a particular focus on the
museum), and then the kind of geotechnical constraints that will have to be dealt
with.

2.

Standards and norms in use for underground building

There is not, as such, a specialized literature on underground buildings. However


the construction standards apply for such buildings, with special mentions on
underground construction.
On this study, we will only consider relevant the standards that are either specific to
or that could be restrictive in the case of underground construction.
We can thus distinguish four kinds of standards and restraints:
-

General building standards

Norms on evacuation

Reuse of underground cavities

Heat and smoking vents

Accessibility

2.1.

General building standards

Concerning the museum and the hotel part, they are both subject to the
construction code related to public buildings (ERP in French). Although they are not
subjected to the exact same category (Y category for the museum and O for the
hotel), they follow the same general guidelines except for some special adjustments
for the hotel.
As such, public buildings are not allowed to have a mean level of external
grounds to be inferior to 6 meters. The quarry being between 15 and 20 meters deep,
this could be an issue. However special requests can be made to allow construction
under the 6 meters threshold, and this threshold may only apply to the exits,
depending on the interpretation of the norms.
Concerning the number of visitors allowed, it is limited to one visitor for every 5
square meters for the Y category public buildings.
2.2.

Norms on evacuation

Evacuation is one of the main aspects concerning the dimensioning of the


facility. Three points are paramount:
-

Emergency exits

Clearings

Secure waiting areas for disabled people

2.2.1. Emergency exits


The exits will be old converted shafts. The shafts are approximatively evenly
distributed which would allow for them to be reused without having to drill new
ones. Those shafts are either 3.5 or 2.5 meters wide, which would allow for either
width of passageway of 1.4 and 0.9 meter respectively with spiral staircases. Those
shafts should all be compartmentalised and overpressured to avoid fumes. As the
museum is underground, the visitors should not have to be farther than 40 meters
from two different exits that are distant by more than 5 meters or 30 meters from one
single exit.
With those criteria in mind, we can define area that can be open to the public based
on the existing shafts (open or closed).

Reuse of underground cavities

Figure 2. Map of the different exits and the deduced area open to the public. Thick
and thin circles indicate respectively 30 and 40 meters radius around the shaft. Blue
circles indicate 2.5m wide shafts and red circles 3.5m shafts.
The area that could be open to the public would thus have a surface of 10 000 square
meters (counting the pillars). With an approximated excavation ratio of 67%, we get
a total surface of 6700 square meters
2.2.2. Secured waiting spaces
To evacuate disabled people, two lifts should be planned for at two different
locations. One that could serve as a main entrance and another for an emergency
exit. Secured waiting spaces will have to be implemented near those lifts and should
fit 2 people for each 50 visitors.
2.2.3. Clearings and calculation of the number of visitors
With the total number of exits available, we have 6 exits. To determine the
number of visitors, it is important to determine the number of the total passageway
units (PU). For exits of 1.4 and 0.9 meters we respectively get two and one PUs.
As such, we get a total of 10 PUs which would allow up to 1000 visitors
Given the depth of the museum however, the sizing should be majored by 100%,
which would allow for a maximum of 400 visitors to simultaneously be in the
museum.
2.3.

Heat and smoking vents

As the quarry is not naturally ventilated, it will have to be done mechanically.


Evacuating the fumes is quite constraining given the size of the area used. It

Reuse of underground cavities

effectively implies that the quarry will be divided into districts that will have to be
separated by panels of height equivalent to 25% of the total height of the ceiling.
Given that smoke height has to be higher than 1.8 meters, it would give off a
minimal height of the ceiling of 2.4 meters.
Every district will have to have a minimum surface of 1000 square meters, up to
1600 square meters. We divided the zone in 5 sectors following those criteria.

Figure 3. Venting districts

2.4.

Accessibility

The main issue for accessibility of handicapped people (besides the evacuation
matter) are linked with the soil and dimensioning of the facility:
-

The passageways have to be at least 1.4 meters wide

There should not be a slope more than 5% steep, for 4% slope and
steeper, resting floors should be provided.

The floor must be adapted, i.e. neither looser nor slippery. It must also be
even.

2.5.

Specificity concerning the Hotel part

In addition to the specificity of the museum, the part that will be dedicated to the
hotel will need to have passageways of at least two PUs, and rooms for disabled
people may be treated as safe waiting space.
2.6.

Works needed for compliance with construction standards

Extensive work will have to be done in order to comply with the preceding
standards.
Most notably, the soil will have to be levelled and concrete will have to be lain.

Reuse of underground cavities

Furthermore, all the shafts are not open or currently available, some are plugged
and some others are located right beneath the road leading to the quarry. Those
shafts would have to be emptied and for those that are under the road, it will be
needed either to move the road or dig other shafts. Most shafts would also need to be
consolidated, with a casing for example.
Whats more, two other shafts will have to be dug for the elevators, for the main
entrance and the emergency exit.
For the ventilation, aeration shafts will also have to be drilled, on top of what, we
will have to level the ground and clear out the ground to ensure a sufficient height.
With a mean height of 2.24m, we estimated the volume that had to be dug out of
approximatively 1256 cubic metres.
3.

Geotechnical study of the quarry

3.1.

Geotechnical survey

With a technician from the Ineris, we carried out a global survey of the zone that
is concerned by the museum part.
We identified the major items that needed attention that are the ceiling and the
pillars.
The pillars are quite critical as they assume the weight of the upper soil and the
global stability of the quarry. As some parts of the quarry will need to have a portion
of the soil dug out (up to 0.6 meters) to ensure the minimum height of ceiling of 2.4
meters, they may become more fragile and get chipped.
As for the ceiling, independently to the pillar it may be fragile and prone to the
fall of layers of rocks.
During our survey, the main characteristics that we paid attention to were; for the
pillars, the degree of fracturing and the degree of scaling, and for the ceiling, mainly
the presence of fracture that were either induced or natural.
Additionally, we also looked for traces of water infiltration.

Reuse of underground cavities

Figure 4. Damaged zones and pillars


Slight damage
Average damage
Great damage
Critical damage
We managed to identify 4 different zones during our investigations; the first zone
is the easternmost zone. It is also the less damaged of the four zones, except for a
zone with layers of limestone prone to falling on the west and water infiltration on
the east.
The second zone is a bit more damaged, with pillars that are either chipped or a
bit fractured. The zone is also characterized by sizable rooms, with great width that
is weakening the ceiling.
The third zone has greatly damaged parts, notably on the west, with pillars that
are much damaged and traces of an old cave-in. On a whole, pillars are averagely
damage.
On the fourth zone, the height of the ceiling makes the pillars more fragile, with a
significant portion of the pillars being either much chipped or fractured. On a whole,
the ceiling shows traces of fracture everywhere, with greater water infiltration and
humidity than in the rest of the quarry.

Reuse of underground cavities

3.2.

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Means of remediation

To counter these damages, several actions can be taken. For the pillars, three
different methods can be used.
-

If the pillar is lightly chipped, a mere purge of the damaged zone can be
sufficient.

In case of more extensive damage (fracture or scaling), it may be


necessary to bolt down the pillar with a metal mesh (which is made
difficult by the fact that the pillar is made of different layers of rocks) or
to build a stone wall around it.

In some cases, the damages may be light enough for an intervention not to
be necessary.

However, it has to be noted that for the area where the soil will need to be dug out,
the pillars may be weakened. This might be the case in the second zone, where the
ceiling is lower than in the rest of the quarry. The fact that the pillars in the fourth
zone, where the ceiling is the highest, be the most damaged illustrates that
possibility.

As for the ceiling, there can be two modes of operation;


-

A purge of the ceiling if the damage is not too extensive

The building of a stone pillar if the stability of the ceiling is threatened

All those works should obviously be made in light of a more extensive geotechnical
survey.

4.

Conclusion

Although it is only a preliminary study, we can already assess that the works
needed to convert the quarry are going to be quite extensive and expensive. As of
now, the furthering of this study would be to determine preliminary costs linked to
the basic works needed on a geotechnical basis and on a regulatory basis. This would
allow the project to be presented to higher authorities so to better evaluate its
feasibility.
However to determine the full extent of the construction, a more precise study of
the project would be needed with contribution from both architects and urbanists. A
complete socio-economic study should also be carried out to tailor the project to the
local and global needs and to ensure that it is economically viable.

Reuse of underground cavities

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Bibliography
R. Redondo, Reuse of underground mining openings, Project report, ENSMN
2014.
Personal conversations with Thomas RICHARD from the Ineris.
Personal conversations with Loc HENRIOT from EMLI Expertise consultancy
study.
Personal conversations with Augustin de Cointet from Culturespace.
http://www.sitesecurite.com/portail/ERP/indexERP.asp
http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/

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