• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.531-546
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• 2022

Ground displacements caused by the construction of overlapping twin shield tunnels with small turning radius are complex, especially under special geological conditions of construction. To investigate the ground displacements caused due to shield machines in the unique calcareous sand layers in Israel for the first time and determine the main factors affecting the ground displacements, field monitoring, laboratory geological analysis, theoretical calculations, and parameter studies were adopted. By using rod extensometers, inclinometers, total stations, and automatic segment-displacement monitors, subsurface tunneling-induced displacement, surface settlement, and displacement of the down-track tunnel segments caused by the construction of an up-track tunnel were analyzed. The up-track tunnel and the down-track tunnel pass through different stratum, resulting in different construction parameters and ground displacements. The laws of variation of thrust and torque, soil pressure in the chamber, excavated soil quantity, synchronous grouting pressure, and grout volume of the two tunnels from parallel to fully overlapping orientations were compared. The thrust and torque of the shield in the fine sand are larger than those in the Kurkar layer, and the grouting amount in fine sand is unstable. According to fuzzy statistics and Gaussian curve fitting of the shield tunneling speed, the tunneling speed in the Kurkar stratum is twice that in the fine-sand stratum.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.215-224
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• 2019

Excavation of long tunnels by shielded TBMs is a safe, fast, and efficient method of tunneling that mitigates many risks related to ground conditions. However, long-distance tunneling in great depth through adverse geological conditions brings about limitations in the application of TBMs. Among various harsh geological conditions, squeezing ground as a consequence of tunnel wall and face convergence could lead to cluttered blocking, shield jamming and in some cases failure in the support system. These issues or a combination of them could seriously hinder the performance of TBMs. The technique of excavation has a strong influence on the tunnel response when it is excavated under squeezing conditions. The Golab water conveyance tunnel was excavated by a double-shield TBM. This tunnel passes mainly through metamorphic weak rocks with up to 650 m overburden. These metamorphic rocks (Shales, Slates, Phyllites and Schists) together with some fault zones are incapable of sustaining high tangential stresses. Prediction of the convergence, estimation of the creeping effects and presenting strategies to overcome the squeezing ground are regarded as challenging tasks for the tunneling engineer. In this paper, the squeezing potential of the rock mass is investigated in specific regions by dint of numerical and analytical methods. Subsequently, several operational solutions which were conducted to counteract the challenges are explained in detail.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.197-217
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• 2020

Shield TBM tunneling, used in the construction of Seoul subway line 7 and line 9, has been well known as a very efficient, as well as safe, tunneling method. Although the Shield TBM method has been known to be effectively used in poor ground conditions, a number of troubles have occurred during the use of the shield TBM, due to inappropriate machine selection, machine breakdown, and unpredicted ground conditions etc. In this study, several accidents and trouble cases occurred during excavation by Shield TBM, reported from Japan, were investigated. A series of numerical analysis was then performed to compare with the trouble cases and back-analysis results for the cause analysis. The lessons learned from the case studies are presented at the end.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.37 no.10
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• pp.55-63
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• 2021

The construction of shield tunnels is being expanded from the small-bore tunnels such as power, telecommunications, water supply, and sewerage pipes to the large bore tunnels such as road and railway tunnels with the advancement of the shield TBM (Tunnel Boring Machine) manufacturing technology. Accordingly, the construction of twin shield tunnels is increasing. Peck (1969) reported that the surface settlement trough is well described by a Gaussian distribution on a single shield tunnel. Hereafter, many studies about the surface settlement trough were performed by the field measurement, laboratory model test, and numerical analysis. This study confirmed that the additional surface settlement trough induced by the 2^nd tunneling were well described by using each Gaussian curve for the right and left sides of the settlement trough.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.417-426
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• 2024

Shield tunneling method is widely used to build tunnels in complex geological environment. Stability control of tunnel face is the key to the safety of projects. To improve the excavation efficiency or perform equipment maintenance, the excavation chamber sometimes is not fully filled with support medium, which can reduce the load and increase tunneling speed while easily lead to ground collapse. Due to the high risk of the face failure under non-fully support mode, the tunnel face stability should be carefully evaluated. Whether compressive air is required for compensation and how much air pressure should be provided need to be determined accurately. Based on the upper bound theorem of limit analysis, a non-fully support rotational failure model is developed in this study. The failure mechanism of the model is verified by numerical simulation. It shows that increasing the density of supporting medium could significantly improve the stability of tunnel face while the increase of tunnel diameter would be unfavorable for the face stability. The critical support ratio is used to evaluate the face failure under the nonfully support mode, which could be an important index to determine whether the specific unsupported height could be allowed during shield tunneling. To avoid of face failure under the non-fully support mode, several charts are provided for the assessment of compressed air pressure, which could help engineers to determine the required air pressure for face stability.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.1791-1796
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• 2005

Semi-shield tunneling is one of the propulsion construction methods used to lay pipes underground between two pits named 'entrance' and 'destination', respectively. Usually a simple composition, such as 'a fiducial target at the entrance+a total station (TS)+a target on the machine', is used to confirm the planned course. However, unavoidable curved sections are present in small-sized pipe lines, which are laid after implementation of a road system, for public works such as waterworks, sewer, electrical power, and gas and communication networks. Therefore, if the planned course has a curved section, it is difficult to survey the course with the abovementioned simple composition. This difficulty could be solved by using the multiple total stations (MTS), which attaches the cross type linear LED target to oneself. The MTS are disposed to where each TS can detect the LED target at the other TS or the base point or the machine. And the accurate relative positions between each MTS and target are calculated from measured data. This research proposes the relative and absolute coordinate calculation algorithm by using three MTS to measure a curved course with 20m curvature at 30m maximum distance, and verifies the algorithm experimentally.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.29-50
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• 2002

Based on the investigation results on the damages of some underground structures due to the severe Kobe Earthquake it concludes that the aseismicity of underground is far superior to that of aboveground structures. Therefore, at first, necessity to reconstruct strong cities especially by good use of underground space will be discussed. Then two non-circular shield-tunneling projects in Japan are discussed. The first is construction of the world's first shield driven double track subway tunnel of rectangular shape for the Kyoto Municipal Subway. This paper presents a report on the overall planning, the tests that were performed in the process of planning, and the results of driving. The second is the design of the Hirakata Tunnel, with three traffic lanes and shoulders on one side, which will be constructed as one of the tunnels for The New Meishin (Nagoya-Kobe) Expressways. This paper presents the feasibility study of the shield tunneling method, using the same design criteria as the non-circular, horseshoe section of mountain tunnel, to the equivalent section of the Hirakata Tunnel.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.29 no.5
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• pp.509-522
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• 2022

Tail-grouting is an effective measure in shield engineering for filling the gap at the shield tail to reduce ground deformation. However, the gap-filling ratio affects the value of the gap parameters, leading to different surface settlements. It is impossible to adjust the fill ratio indiscriminately to study its effect, because the allowable adjustment range of the grouting quantity is limited to ensure construction site safety. In this study, taking the shield tunnel section between Chaoyanggang Station and Shilihe Station of Beijing Metro Line 17 as an example, the correlation between the tail-grouting parameter and the surface settlement is investigated and the optimal grouting quantity is evaluated. This site is suitable for conducting field tests to reduce the tail-grouting quantity of shield tunneling over a large range. In addition, the shield tunneling under different grouting parameters was simulated. Furthermore, we analyzed the evolution law of the surface settlement under different grouting parameters and obtained the difference in the settlement parameters for each construction stage. The results obtained indicate that the characteristics of the grout affect the development of the surface settlement. Therefore, reducing the setting time or increasing the initial strength of the grout could effectively suppress the development of surface subsidence. As the fill ratio decreases, the loose zone of the soil above the tunnel expands, and the soil deformation is easily transmitted to the surface. Meanwhile, owing to insufficient grout support, the lateral pressure on the tunnel segments is significantly reduced, and the segment moves considerably after being removed from the shield tail.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.677-683
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• 2016

In urban areas, underground tunnel construction sites have spread widely to accommodate rapidly increasing traffic volume along with a high-degree economic growth. Earth tunneling might be adapted frequently for the underground space securing, and various tunneling methods have been developed to stabilize the tunnel face and crown. Among them, the DSM (divided shield method) is gaining popularity for its enhanced stability and construction efficiency. This method has its foundation from the Messer Shield method, which is one of the trenchless special tunneling methods. This study examined the effects of face reinforcement on construction the sequence through a large scale soil chamber test and numerical analyses. The chamber has a size of a 1/2 scale of the real tunnel. Surface settlements were measured according the tunneling process. Commercially available software, MIDAS GTS, was used for numerical analysis and its result was compared with the values obtained from the chamber test. The results of the study show that both settlements of the embanked soils and the stress of the tunnel girder are located within the safe criteria. Overall, this study provides basic data and the potential of using a reinforced tunnel face to enhance DSM applications.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.375-392
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• 2018

The shield TBM method is widely adopted for tunneling works in urban area because it has more beneficial ways to control settlement at ground surface than conventional mined tunneling. In the shield tunneling, backfill grouting at tail void is crucial because it is supposed not only to restraint ground deformation around tail void during excavation but also to compensate precedent ground settlement by pushing up the ground with highly pressurized grout. However, the tail void grouting has been found to be ineffective for settlement compensation particularly in sandy ground, which might be caused by complicate interaction between ground and tail void grouting. In this paper, the effects of tail void grouting on behavior of ground in shield TBM tunneling were investigated based on 3-dimensional finite element analyses. The results of numerical analyses indicated that backfill grouting actually reduces settlement by degrading settlement increasing rate in excavation, which means decrease of volume loss. Meanwhile, the grouting could not contribute to compensate the precedent settlement, because reduction of volume loss by grouting was found to be counterbalanced by volume change of ground.