Computers and Geotechnics 30 (2003) 245253 www.elsevier.

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A full 3-D nite element analysis of tunnelingadjacent structures interaction

H. Mroueh, I. Shahrour*
canique de Lille (URA CNRS 1441), University of Sciences and Technologies of Lille (USTL), EUDIL- Civil Engineering Department, Laboratoire de Me 59655 Villeneuve dAscq, France Received 22 November 2001; received in revised form 30 July 2002; accepted 5 August 2002

Abstract This paper concerns a study of the interaction between tunneling in soft soils and adjacent structures. Analysis is performed using a full three-dimensional nite element model, which takes into consideration the presence of the structure during the construction of the tunnel. The soil behavior is assumed to be governed by an elastic perfectly-plastic constitutive relation based on the Mohr Coulomb criterion with a non-associative ow rule. The paper is composed of three parts. The rst part describes the numerical model used in this study, the second part concerns a full three-dimensional analysis of the construction of a shallow tunnel close to a two level building. The last part includes comparison between the full 3D analysis and a simplied approach, which neglects the inuence of the presence of the structure in the determination of the tunneling-induced ground movement. # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Finite element; Interaction; Plasticity; Structure; Three-dimensional; Tunneling

1. Introduction This paper presents a thorough analysis related to the inuence of tunneling in soft soils on adjacent buildings. This issue is of major interest for tunneling operations in urban areas, due to the high interaction between tunneling and existing structures. This problem/issue was previously analyzed using a combination of in situ observations and numerical modeling. Analysis of previous case histories paved the way for the establishment of various empirical relationships between tunnelinginduced ground movement and associated structure damage [14]. These methods/relationship are widely used in practice. Numerical analyses were also performed using simplied approaches that generally executed in two consecutive steps. The rst step addresses the determination of tunneling-induced ground movement using either empirical, analytical or numerical methods such as those proposed by Peck [5], OReilly and New [6], and Sagaseta [7]. The building response to tunneling is then determined in the second step by
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-3-20434545; fax: +33-320434583. E-mail address: isam.shahrour@eudil.fr (I. Shahrour).

performing a complete a structural analysis of the building subjected to the ground movement calculated in the rst step. In this two-step approach, building damage is probably overestimated because of the neglect of the structure stiness in predicting the tunneling-induced ground movement. Potts and Addenbrooke [8] used a coupled 2D nite element model to study the inuence of a surface structure on the ground movement due to tunneling. Their numerical results showed that the presence of the surface structure has signicantly inuenced the ground movement. A rigorous analysis of the tunnelingstructure interaction problem is a hard task, due to the (i) high interaction between tunneling in soft soils and adjacent structures, (ii) three-dimensional nature of this problem and, (iii) the non-linear behavior of geomaterials involved. Such approach requires the use of a full threedimensional coupled modeling that takes into account the presence of existing structures and the tunneling procedure employed [911]. This approach was used by Burd et al. [11] to analysis the interaction between the construction of an unlined tunnel and a masonry building. Their studies noted a signicant inuence of the tunnelingbuilding interaction on the distribution of damage in the building.

0266-352X/03/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0266-352X(02)00047-2

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This paper describes a study related to the interaction between the construction of a lined tunnel and adjacent structures. The study was performed using a full threedimensional nite element analysis, which takes into consideration the elastoplastic behavior of the soil, the tunneling procedure and the presence of the structure. The paper consists of three parts. The rst part describes the numerical model used in this study. The second part addresses the full three-dimensional analysis employed in the construction of a shallow tunnel in the proximity of a two level building. The last part includes a comparison between the full 3-D FEM analysis and a simplied approach.

the mean stress, second invariant of the deviatoric stress tensor and Lode angle, respectively. Their expressions are given by: p ii =3 1 J2 sij :sij where sij ij pij 2 ! p 1 1 3 3 J3 sij :sjk :ski : 3=2 where J3  sin 3 2 J2 3 3

2. Numerical modelling Fig. 1 depicts the problem under consideration which is used to quantify the interaction between tunneling in a soft ground and an adjacent building. The tunnel is characterized by its depth H, diameter D, lining thickness e, while the building is modeled by a spatial reinforced concrete framed structure characterized by the level height hs and columns spacing as and bs. The behavior of the structure is assumed to be linearelastic. The soil behavior is assumed to be governed by an elastic perfectly-plastic constitutive relation based on the MohrCoulomb criterion with a non-associative ow rule. The yield function and the plastic potential are given by: r p J2 f psin J2 cos sinsin Ccos 1 3 r J2 sinsin 2 3 C, and designate the soil cohesion, friction angle and dilatancy angle, respectively; p, J2 and  stand for g psin p J2 cos

It is worth noting that such analysis can be improved by employing a more realistic soil material constitutive relation, which takes into account soil hardening and stress-dependant elastic properties. In this study, numerical simulations were performed by means of the nite element program PECPLAS [12] which provides exible features for the analysis of threedimensional and non-linear soilstructure interaction problems [13,14]. PECPLAS uses a sparse storage scheme for the stiness matrix, and the bi-CGSTAB iterative method [15] coupled to the SSOR preconditioning operator (successive symmetrical over-relaxation) for the solution of the resulting linear systems. Analysis of the tunnelingstructure interaction problem is performed in two stages. The rst stage is concerned with the determination of initial stresses in the soil mass prior to the tunnel construction. It is performed using a nite element calculation considering the self-weight of both the soil and the structure. Displacements are reset to zero at the end of this stage; consequently, results referred to hereafter are due to the tunnel construction. The second stage deals with the numerical simulation for the construction of the tunnel in presence of the structure. The tunnel construction process is modeled by deactivation of soil elements

Fig. 1. Tunnellingstructure interaction: problem under consideration.

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located in the excavated zone and activation of lining elements. Associated analysis is performed according to the successive steps illustrated in Fig. 2 [14,16]. Each step corresponds to the progression of the tunnel face by a distance Llin. It includes:  a partial deactivation of soil elements situated in the section to be excavated; the deactivation procedure is supposed to be governed by parameters dec and Ldec which stand for the ratio of stress release (unloading level) and the length of the unlined zone, respectively. The calibration of these parameters and their inuence on tunneling induced displacement are discussed in Mroueh [14] and Mroueh and Shahrour [16];  activation of lining elements located in the new section and a full release of stresses in this section. A uniform front pressure p is applied at the tunnel face to ensure its stability during tunneling (Fig. 2).

3. Full 3-D coupled analysis 3.1. Presentation of the example The full three-dimensional coupled approach is used herein to study the inuence of tunneling on the structure presented in Fig. 3a. The longitudinal section of the tunnel is assumed to coincide with that of the building. The tunnel and structure characteristics are given by: tunnel diameter D=7.5 m, lining thickness e=0.5 m, tunnel depth H=2.5D, columns spacing as=bs=5 m,

and height of each level hs=4 m. The respective axial and bending stinesses used are EA=3200 MN and EI=43 MN.m2 for columns, and EA=4000 MN and EI=83 MN.m2 for beams. The soil media is assumed to be homogeneous silty sand with friction angle =27.5 , cohesion C=5 kPa, dilatancy angle =5 , Youngs modulus E=30 MPa, and Poissons ratio =0.3. The lining is assumed to be governed by a linear-elastic behavior with a Youngs modulus E=35,000 MPa and a Poissons ratio =0.25. Table 1 and Fig. 3a summarize the mechanical and geometrical properties of the structure and the tunnel. The distance of the tunnel centre to the bottom boundary (rigid substratum) is assumed to be equal to 2.5D. Results presented in this paper are related to this conguration and to tunneling parameters dec and Ldec given below. Note that an increase in the depth of the bottom boundary can signicantly aect the soil settlement, particularly in the case of a homogeneous soil media as in the case assumed herein [1719]. Finite element analysis is carried out using the mesh presented in Fig. 3b. The mesh includes 3912 20-nodes hexahedral elements, which give rise to 19,017 nodes and 52,533 degrees of freedom. The lateral boundaries of the mesh are located a distance 4D from the central frame in order to minimize their impact on the tunnelingstructure interaction. The structure is modeled using 20-nodes hexahedral elements. Stresses at Gauss points resulting from the nite element analysis are used for the calculation of the bending moment and axial force in the structural elements. The entire analysis is performed in drained condition. Computation is carried out in 15 successive steps using the following parameters for the excavation modeling: ratio of stress release dec=0.7, length of the unlined zone Ldec=1D, and length of the excavated section at each step Llin=0.5D. Based on a preliminary study, these parameters are xed in order to reproduce realistic tunneling-induced soil movement in free-eld condition (in the absence of the structure). Fig. 4a presents the 3D soil settlement prole computed in free-eld condition. It shows a normal Gaussian distribution as proposed by Peck [5] in the transverse section (Fig. 4b). The

Table 1 Mechanical properties of encountered materials Group Soil Lining Columns Beams Fig. 2. Procedure of the tunnel construction modelling (Mroueh [14]). E (MPa) 30 35,000 EA=3200MN EI=43 MN.m2 EA=4000MN EI=83 MN.m2  0.3 0.25 0.2 0.2 c (kPa) 5 ( ) 27.5 5 ( )

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maximum ground settlement smax is equal to 13.5 mm, which is about 0.18% of the tunnel diameter D. The horizontal distance from the tunnel centre line to the point of inection (i) on the settlement trough is 1.25D. This value agrees well with values proposed by Attewell [20] and OReilly and New [6]. The ratio (r) between maximum surface settlement and maximum vertical displacement at the tunnel crown is 0.5. Sagaseta [7] suggested the use of r values ranging between 0.2 for granular soils and 0.67 for clayey soils with low cohe-

sion. The ratio of volume loss of the settlement trough to the volume of excavated soil is equal to 0.7%. This value agrees well with observations on tunnels constructed using shield tunneling [6,21]. Fig. 4c illustrates the distribution of the tunneling-induced soil plasticity in the transverse section of the tunnel located at a distance 4D behind the tunnel face. It shows that tunneling induces plasticity around the tunnel is located in a region that extends up to 1.5D from the tunnel centre.

Fig. 3. Full 3-D coupled analysis: presentation of the example. (a) Geometry under consideration; (b) nite element mesh (3912 hexahedral elements HEX20; 19,017 nodes; 52,533 dof).

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3.2. Tunnelingstructure interaction 3.2.1. Soilmovement Fig. 5 depicts the evolution of the displacement of the structure foundations during tunneling. It shows that the lateral displacement of each foundation increases during tunneling. It starts when the tunnel face is about 2D behind the foundation, attains about 4045% of the total displacement when the tunnel face crosses the foundation section and then decreases when the tunnel face moves away from the foundation and .stabilizes when the tunnel face is about 2D from the foundation section. The maximum lateral displacement is observed at the rear foundation A4; it is equal to 2.2 mm which is about twice the lateral displacement of front foundations A1 and A3 It can also be observed that the longitudinal displacement of each foundation increases when the tunnel face becomes close to the foundation section and then decreases when the tunnel faces moves away from the

foundation. The longitudinal displacement of front and rear foundations are very close (about 2.5 mm). Fig. 5c shows that the settlement of each foundation increases during tunneling; the foundation settlement reaches about 5560% of its nal value when the tunnel face crosses the foundation section. The maximum settlement is observed at the central front foundation A3; it is equal to 13 mm which is about 25% higher than the settlement observed at the rear foundation A4. It can be observed that tunneling causes a dierential settlement of about 3.5 mm between the centre frame foundations A3 and A4 which are spaced at 5 m. Fig. 6a presents the settlement induced by the construction of the tunnel and its comparison to free-eld ground settlement prole. It can be observed that the presence of the structure aects the soil surface settlement prole. Globally, the structure stiness causes a reduction in the soil settlement prole, but in the vicinity of the foundations we observe sharp increases in soil settlement. These increases are due to the plasticity

Fig. 4. Free-eld analysis: soil movement and plasticity. (a) Settlement prole at the end of excavation; (b) theoritical prole, after Peck [5]; (c) extension of plasticity in transverse section.

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induced in this zone by both the structures self-weight and tunneling as illustrated in Fig. 6b. Note that, the neglect of the structures self-weight leads to a smooth surface settlement prole as will be discussed later. However, it is expected that a mesh renement may lead to a smoother surface settlement prole. 3.2.2. Internal forces Table 2 lists internal forces induced by tunneling in the structural members of the frame. It shows a tension axial force in the front columns 1 and 3, with a maximum value of about 62 kN in column 3, and a maximum axial force of about 25 kN in column 1, which is about 60% smaller than to that induced in column 3. This observation indicates a transfer of axial loading from the front lateral column to the front centre one. In the rear column 4, tunneling induces an axial compression force, with a maximum value of about 34 kN.

Concerning the bending moment values, it can be observed that tunneling induces high bending moment in rear columns in comparison with that induced in front columns. The maximum bending moment occurring in the 1st level (resp. basement connection) of the rear column 4 is about 30% (resp. 14%) higher than that induced in the front column 3.

4. Inuence of the building self-weight Generally, analysis of the tunnelingstructure interaction problem does not take into consideration the inuence of the structures self-weight in the process of determining the associated initial stresses. Fig. 7 illustrates the inuence of considering the structures selfweight on the tunneling induced settlement and plasticity. It can be observed that neglecting the structures

Fig. 5. Full 3-D coupled analysis: displacement of foundations during tunnel excavation. (a) Lateral displacement ux; (b) longitudinal displacement uy; (c) settlement sz.

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self-weight leads to notable underestimation of the plasticity induced in the proximity of the structural foundations and around the tunnel (Fig. 7b). Consequently, this leads to a reduction in the soil settlement around the structural foundations as illustrated in Fig. 7a. Moreover, based on results obtained herein, the neglect of the structures self-weight leads to a reduction of about 62% of the dierential settlement between the front and rear foundations, which constitutes a key parameter in the soil-structure interaction problem. Table 3 illustrates the inuence of the buildings selfweight on the tunneling-induced internal forces. It shows that neglecting the self-weight causes a decrease of about 35% in the axial force induced in the front column and an increase of about 20% in the axial force of the rear column. Examining the bending moment values listed in Table 3, it can be noted that the neglect of the selfweight yields an increase of about 27% in the bending moment in the front column and an increase of about 13% in the bending moment in the rear column.

5. Simplied approach This section presents a comparison between the fullcoupled FEM approach and the simplied approach that neglects the presence of the structure in the determination of the tunneling-induced ground movement. In this simplied approach, the tunneling-induced forces were determined from the structural response to the displacements calculated in free-eld conditions (Table 4). Table 5 shows a comparison of the results obtained via the full-coupled and simplied approaches. It can be observed that the simplied approach overTable 2 Coupled analysis: internal forces due to tunnelling Structural members Category Axial force (kN) Bending moment (kN.m) A1 25 30 E1 25 52 A3 62 28 E3 62 52 A4 34 32 E4 34 74

Fig. 6. Full 3-D coupled analysis: comparison with simplied approach. (a) Ground settlement prole along (AA0 ) axis; (b) extension of plasticity in transverse section.

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Table 3 Inuence of structures weight on induced internal forces Structural members Coupled analysis Self-weight considered Self-weight neglected Category Axial force (kN) Bending moment (kN.m) Axial force (kN) Bending moment (kN.m) A3 62 28 41 16 E3 62 52 41 41 A4 34 32 43 62 E4 34 74 43 85

Table 4 Free-eld displacement at the structural foundations ux (mm) A3 A4 1.8 3.5 uy (mm) 0.5 0.4 sz (mm) 12.4 9.8 y (rd) 4.5104 9.5104

Table 5 Comparison of the full coupled and the simplied approaches: internal forces in the central frame A3 Simplied analysis E3 A4 E4

Axial force (kN) 67 67 67 67 Bending moment (kN.m) 110 94 195 141 Full coupled analysis Axial force (kN) 62 62 34 34 Bending moment (kN.m) 28 52 32 74

the simplied approach predicts a maximum bending moment of 195 kN.m in the front column, compare with the 32 kN.m predicted by the full coupled analysis for the same column. This represents over 600% overestimation.

6. Conclusion This paper presented a numerical study of the interaction between tunneling and adjacent structure in soft soils. Numerical simulations were conducted using a full three-dimensional calculation which takes into account the presence of the structure during tunneling. Present analysis indicates that tunneling-induced forces largely depend on the presence of adjacent structures. The neglect of the structural stiness in the tunnelingstructure analysis yields to signicant overestimation of internal forces in the structural members. The simplied approach, which considers the free-eld soil movement in the calculation of the tunnelinginduced forces can be considered as very conservative. Furthermore, present analysis showed that it is of major interest to consider the buildings self-weight in the determination of initial stresses in the soil mass that exist prior to the tunnel construction. Indeed, the neglect of the buildings self-weight may generally lead to notable underestimation of the tunneling-induced forces.

Fig. 7. Inuence of considering the structures self-weight on the tunnellingstructure interaction problem. (a) Ground settlement prole along (AA0 ) axis; (b) extension of plasticity in transverse section.

estimates by about 100% the axial force in the rear column 4, but agrees well with the full-coupled approach for the axial force in the front column 3. Regarding the bending moment values, the simplied approach largely overestimates the bending moment in the structural members, particularly in the front column. Furthermore,

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