Design of the secondary tunnel lining using a ground-primary support-secondary lining interaction model

It is the common practice to reinforce excessively the secondary tunnel lining due to the lack of rational insights into the ground loosening loads. The main load of the secondary lining for drained-type tunnels is the ground loosening. The main cause of the load for secondary tunnel lining is the deterioration of the primary support members such as shotcrete, steel ribs, and rockbolts. Accordingly, the development of the analysis model to consider the ground-primary supports-secondary lining interaction is very important for the rational design of the secondary tunnel lining. In this paper, the interaction is conceptually described by the simple mass-spring model and the load transfer from the primary supports to the ground and the secondary lining is showed by the characteristic curves including the secondary lining reaction curve for the theoretical solution of a circular tunnel. And also, the application of this model to numerical analysis is verified in order to review the potential tool for practical tunnel problems with the complex conditions like non-circular shaped tunnels, multi-layered ground, sequential excavation and so on.