A NEW FEEDBACK TECHNIQUE FOR TUNNEL SAFETY BY USING MEASURED DISPLACEMENTS DURING TUNNEL EXCAVATION

This research project was carried out to develop the technique to assess quantitatively and rapidly the stability of a tunnel by using the measured displacement at the tunnel construction site under excavation. To achieve this purpose, a critical strain concept was introduced and applied to an assessment of a tunnel under construction. The new technique calculates numerically the strains of the surrounding ground by using the measured displacements during excavation. A numerical practical system was developed based on the proposed analysis technique in this study. The feasibility of the developed analysis module was verified by incorporating the analysis results obtained by commercial programs into the developed analysis module. To verify the feasibility of the developed analysis module, analysis results of models both elastic and elasto-plastic grounds were investigated for the circular tunnel design. Then the measured displacements obtained in the field are utilized practically to assess the safety of tunnels using critical strain concept. It was verified that stress conditions of in-situ ground and ground material properties were accurately assessed by inputting the calculated displacement obtained by commercial program into this module for the elastic ground. However for the elasto-plastic ground, analysis module can reproduce the initial conditions more closely for the soft rock ground than for the weathered soil ground. The stability of tunnels evaluated with two types of strains, that is, the strains obtained by dividing the crown displacement into a tunnel size and the strains obtained by using the analysis module. From this study, it is confirmed that the critical strain concept can be fully adopted within the engineering judgment in practical tunnel problems and the developed module can be used as a reasonable tool for the assessment of the tunnel stability in the field.