• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.387-401
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• 2007

Recently, because of the restriction of land for construction and interference of adjacent structure, parallel tunnels with small clearance have been planned and constructed in many sites. In this case, the stability of pillar at center part is very important factor to satisfy the stability of tunnel structure under the construction. In this paper, numerical analyses for the asymmetry parallel tunnels with a narrow width of pillar have been carried out to search for the optimum reinforcement measure for rock pillar and verify the stability of tunnel. Rock pillar between each single tunnel is supposed to be under heavy load by rock mass. The analysis of stress state at rock pillar at various cases for construction conditions is required to investigate the structural behaviour of tunnels and stability of the pillar. Strength-stress ratio is calculated based on the failure theory of rock and the safety factor of tunnel is computed with strength reduction technique. Through these numerical results, reasonable reinforcement measures for rock pillar at parallel tunnel were established and recommended.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.300-311
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• 2008

In this study, scaled model tests were performed to investigate the stability of three parallel tunnels. Seven types of test models which had respectively different pillar widths, tunnel sectional shapes, support conditions and ground conditions were experimented, where crack initiating pressures and deformation behaviors around tunnels were investigated. In order to evaluate the effect of pillar widths on stability, various models were experimented. As results, the models with shallower pillar widths proved to be unstable because of lower crack initiating pressures and more tunnel convergences than the models with thicker pillar widths. In order to find the effect of tunnel sectional shape on stability, the models with arched, semi-arched and rectangular tunnels were experimented. Among them rectangular tunnel model was the most unstable, where the arched tunnel model with small radius of roof curvature was more stable than semi-arched one. The model with rockbolt showed higher crack initiating pressure and less roof lowering than the unsupported model. The deformation behaviors of tunnels in the anisotropic ground model were quite different from those in the isotropic ground model. Futhermore, the results of FLAC analysis were qualitatively coincident with the experimental results.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.471-492
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• 2016

Underground tunnelling is one of the sustainable construction methods which can facilitate the increasing passenger transportation in the urban areas and benefit the community in the long term. Tunnelling in various ground conditions requires careful consideration of the stability factor. This paper investigates three dimensional stability of a shallow circular tunnel in a layered soil. Upper bound theorem of limit analysis was utilised to solve the tunnel face stability problem. A three dimensional kinematic admissible failure mechanism was improved to model a layered soil and limiting assumptions of the previous studies were resolved. The study includes calculation of the minimum support pressure acting on the face of the excavation in closed-face excavations. The effects of the characteristics of the layers on the minimum support pressure were examined. It was found that the ratio of the thickness of cover layers particularly when a weak layer is overlying a stronger layer, has the most significant influence on the minimum tunnel support pressure. Comparisons have been made with the results of the numerical modelling using FLAC3D software. Results of the current study were in a remarkable agreement with those of numerical modelling.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2020

To give a solution for seismic stability of tunnel faces subjected to earthquake ground shakings, the pseudo-dynamic approach is originally introduced to analyze tunnel face stability in this study. In the light of the upper-bound theorem of limit analysis, an advanced three-dimensional mechanism combined with pseudo-dynamic approach is proposed. Based on this mechanism, the required support pressure on tunnel face can be obtained by equaling external work rates to the internal energy dissipation and implementing an optimization searching procedure related to time. Both time and space feature of seismic waves are properly accounted for in the proposed mechanism. For this reason, the proposed mechanism can better represent the actual influence of seismic motion and has a remarkable advantage in evaluating the effects of vertical seismic acceleration, soil amplification factor, seismic wave period and initial phase difference on tunnel face stability. Furthermore, the pseudo-dynamic approach is compared with the pseudo-static approach. The difference between them is illustrated from a new but understandable perspective. The comparison demonstrates that the pseudo-static approach is a conservative method but still could provide precise enough results as the pseudo-dynamic approach if the value of seismic wavelengths is large or the height of soil structures is small.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.97-107
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• 2019

Based on the results of Han et al. (2016), in the failure zone ahead of the tunnel face it can be obviously identified that a shear failure band occurs in the lower part and a pressure arch happens at the upper part, which was often neglected in analyzing the face stability of shield tunnel. In order to better describe the collapse failure feature of the tunnel face, a new improved failure mechanism is proposed to evaluate the face stability of shield tunnel excavated in layered soils in the framework of limit analysis by using spatial discretization technique and linear interpolation method in this study. The developed failure mechanism is composed of two parts: i) the rotational failure mechanism denoting the shear failure band and ii) a uniformly distributed force denoting the pressure arch effect. Followed by the comparison between the results of critical face pressures provided by the developed model and those by the existing works, which indicates that the new developed failure mechanism provides comparatively reasonable results.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.179-188
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• 2002

This study is to understand the effect of the vibration and the stress changes due to the excavation of 2 arch parts of a tunnel, which is a Gyungbu Express Railway tunnel, on the tunnel itself and adjacent slopes in advance, and to analyze the stability. For the estimation of ground conditions, borehole tests, borehole camera logging and seismic logging were performed. Ground properties at a specific location were determined as input constants by performing 2 dimensional analyses with possible ranges of uncertain ground properties. Static and pseudo-static (due to blasting vibration) factors of safety were calculated. The behavior of the tunnel and its vicinity due to the tunnel excavation were predicted by 3 dimensional analyses. It was also tested whether the support system was proper.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.167-178
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• 2003

Damage and overbreak of the remaining rock induced by blasting can not be avoided during tunnel construction which may result in either short-term or long-term tunnel instability. Therefore, in this paper, a methodology to take into account the effect of blast-induced damage in tunnel stability assessment is proposed. Dynamic numerical analysis was executed to evaluate damage and overbreak of the remaining rock for the most common blasting pattern in road tunnel. Rock damage was quantified by utilizing the damage variable factor which is adopted proposed in continuum damage mechanics. The damaged rock stiffness and the damaged failure criteria are used to consider the effect of rock damage in tunnel stability analysis. The damaged geological strength index of the damaged rock was newly proposed from the relationship between deformation modulus and geological strength index. Also the Hoek-Brown failure criteria of the damaged rock was obtained using the damaged geological strength index. Analysing the tunnel stability with the consideration of the blast-induced damage of remaining rock, it was found that the extend of plastic zone and deformation increased compared to the undamaged rock. Therefore the short-term or long-term tunnel stability will be threatened when the rock damage from blasting is ignored in the tunnel stability analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.399-406
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• 2021

It is a key issue in the tunnel design to evaluate the stability of the excavation face. Two efficient analytical models in the context of the limit equilibrium method (LEM) and the limit analysis method (LAM) are used to carry out the deterministic calculations of the safety factor. The safety factor obtained by these two models agrees well with that provided by the numerical modelling by FLAC 3D, but consuming less time. A simple probabilistic approach based on the Mote-Carlo Simulation technique which can quickly calculate the probability distribution of the safety factor was used to perform the probabilistic analysis on the tunnel face stability. Both the cumulative probabilistic distribution and the probability density function in terms of the safety factor were obtained. The obtained results show the effectiveness of this probabilistic approach in the tunnel design.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.417-443
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• 2020

Tunnels have been an integral part of human civilization. Due to complexity in its design and structure, the stability of underground structures under extreme loading conditions has utmost importance. Increased terrorism and geo-political conflicts have forced the engineers and researchers to study the response of underground structures, especially tunnels under blast loading. The present study has been carried out to seek the response of tunnel structures under blast load using the finite element technique. The tunnel has been considered in quartzite rock of northern India. The Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model has been adopted for the elastoplastic behaviour of rock. The rock model surrounding the tunnel has dimensions of 30 m x 30 m x 35 m. Both unlined and lined (concrete) tunnel has been studied. Concrete Damage Plasticity model has been considered for the concrete lining. Four different parameters (i.e., tunnel diameter, liners thickness, overburden depth and mass of explosive) have been varied to observe the behaviour under different condition. To carry out blast analysis, Coupled-Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) modelling has been adopted for modelling of TNT (Trinitrotoluene) and enclosed air. JWL (Jones-Wilkins-Lee) model has been considered for TNT explosive modelling. The paper concludes that deformations in lined tunnels follow a logarithmic pattern while in unlined tunnels an exponential pattern has been observed. The stability of the tunnel has increased with an increase in overburden depth in both lined and unlined tunnels. Furthermore, the tunnel lining thickness also has a significant effect on the stability of the tunnel, but in smaller diameter tunnel, the increase in tunnel lining thickness has not much significance. The deformations in the rock tunnel have been decreased with an increase in the diameter of the tunnel.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1998.03a
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• pp.381-386
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• 1998