Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields – Loizos et al.

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Tunnels interaction with surrounding alluvial soils

O. Naeemifar & R. Rahbari

Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Technical and Engineering, Malard Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Malard, Iran

ABSTRACT:  Behavior of single and twin tunnels interacted with surrounding alluvial soils has been
investigated. 4 different real sites has been selected with real geotechnical and seismic down hole test
results, in order to model the real condition of surrounding soils. The results show the significant effect of
shear wave velocity and tunnel depth on the lining moment, axial forces and settlements. Also, it has been
concluded that the values of lining forces and moments of twin tunnel, has been strongly dependent on
the tunnels distance and also the type of loading (static or dynamic), where the trend of their variation is
also dependent on the soil properties considerably.

Keywords:  Circular tunnels, Static, Dynamic, Single, Twin, Shear wave velocity

1  INTRODUCTION their behavior. Chehade & Shahrour (2008) con-

The effect of different parameters on the static and
dynamic behavior of tunnels has been one of the
main concerns in the previous studies. The most
important parameters can be type of the soil, tun-
nel depth and shape of tunnel section.
Nicieza et  al. (2008) showed that increasing in
depth will result more settlements around the tun-
nels, where for uncircular tunnels the relative set-
tlements are different for different points of tunnel
lining like crest or walls of tunnel. Lee (2009) using
the physical and numerical (finite element) meth-
ods showed that excavating tunnels in coarse grain
soils will result considerable settlements in differ-
ent depths, being increased with more distance
from the ground surface. Also, he concluded that
increasing tunnel depth will lead to a more vast
profile for distribution of the surface settlements.
Nunes & Meguid (2009) performed some physi-
cal and numerical investigation about the soil type
and its thickness concluding that the existence of
the coarse grain layers around the tunnel will result
in considerable reduction of the lining moment.
More thickness of coarse layers or less distance
between coarse layer and tunnel will emphasize its
effects. The results of Hagiwara et  al. (1999) and
Taylor & Grant (2000) is also emphasizing that the
existence of coarse grain layers above the tunnel
will results in less forces values and or moments.
Chu et al. (2007) have reported similar results.
One of the other main problems is the interac-
tion of twin tunnels that has been became of great
importance in big cities. The distance between twin
tunnels or their position can be very effective on
cluded that more distance between tunnels leads
to decrease in surface settlement, while the effect
of tunnels will be negligible when distance between
them is 3 times greater than their diameters.
Also they concluded that for investigated sandy
soil, the values of axial forces and moments are not
dependent on the tunnels distance resulting in simi-
lar values for single and twin tunnels. Other results
of latter investigation have been shown that the
relative position of the tunnels (vertical or inclined)
and also the tunnel construction process can be
very effective on the lining moment or axial forces.
The main scope of this paper is investigating
the effect of the shear wave velocity, tunnel depth
and also the interaction between twin tunnels and
surrounding soils. The latter has been investigated
for circular tunnel based on the finite difference
method and under static and dynamic loading.
2  NUMERICAL MODELING AND
MATERIAL PROPERTIES
Numerical modeling has been performed based on
the finite difference method using the Flac 2D soft-
ware. Circular tunnel are modeled supposing to be
excavated with TBM. The modeling procedure has
been consisting of creating the model geometry,
considering material properties, applying the initial
and boundary condition, static loading (excavat-
ing tunnels, stress relaxation and lining construc-
tion), dynamic loading (applying) and sensitivity
analysis. Sensitivity analysis has been consisting
of investigation the effect of shear wave velocity,

71
tunnel depth and also the distance between twin Table 2a,  Lining moment (Ton-m).
tunnels and their interaction.
Mohr-Coulomb model has been used for Finite difference Finite element
numerical modelling as an Elastic-Perfect Plastic
Static analysis 8.3 9.2
model. The required parameters for this model like Dynamic analysis 35 32.5
cohesion, friction and elasticity modules has been
determined based on the real geotechnical test
results for each of the sites.
Table 2.b.  Lining axial forces (Ton).
4 different soil conditions have been modeled
based on the real seismic and geotechnical test Finite difference Finite element
results of different sites. These soil conditions are
selected in a way to correspond to loose to very Static analysis 70 78
dense soils. The Mohr-Coulomb parameters values Dynamic analysis 100 112
are presented in Table 1.
*Dynamic results correspond to maximum values.
The diameter of modeled tunnels is 10  meters
and the analysis has been performed considering
the tunnel center depth 15 and 25 meters below the 3  MODEL VERIFICATION
ground surface. In order to investigate the interac-
tion between twin tunnels, the ration of their cent- Verification of the models has been performed
ers distance to their diameters has been considered using the finite element method, Plaxis software.
from 1.2 to 3 variables. The static and dynamic results for axial forces,
Figure  1  shows vertical static displacement for moment and displacement were compared, result-
a tunnel model in a loose soil (Vs = 257 m/s) with ing in good accordance between them. Table  2
15 meters depth. It should be noted that a concrete presents results of model verification for an exam-
lining has been considered with 40 cm thickness as ple tunnel model (Depth: 15 m, Vs = 257 m/s).
the permanent retaining structure.

Table  1.  Average model parameters for different soil 4  NUMERICAL RESULTS
condition.
In this section the numerical results of static and
Parameters Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 dynamic analysis are presented. The effect of param-
eters like shear wave velocity, tunnel depth and also
Shear wave Vs m/s 255 465 600 800
velocity
the twin tunnel distance has been investigated. It
Friction ϕ Degree 20 26 30 36 should be noted that the lining moment variation,
angle axial forces variation and also the variations of sur-
Cohesion C Kg/cm2 0.15 0.2 0.2 0.4 face settlement and crest settlement has been investi-
Elasticity Eave Kg/cm2 265 480 650 800 gated in order to evaluate the tunnel behavior.
modulus
(average)
4.1  Static analysis results
Poisson’s υ – 0.45 0.4 0.35 0.32
ratio The static analysis results for tunnels of 15 and
25 meters depth has been presented in Figure 2. It
can be seen that the general trend of variations is
the same for two different depths. The values of
axial force, moment and settlement are the maxi-
mum values due to static loading. Dashed lines are
presenting the tunnel with 15  meters depth and
solid lines are related to tunnels with 25  meters
depth.

4.1.1  The effect of shear wave velocity

Figure  1.  Vertical static displacements (Depth: 15  m,
Vs = 257 m/s).
As can be seen in Figures 2a and 2b, increasing the
shear wave velocity of the soil from 250 to 800 m/s,
has resulted in reduction of the maximum lining
moment while the variation of axial force is not
significant. It seems that the axial force of lining
is more dependent on the tunnel depth more than
the soil type itself.

72
 The axial force distribution in the lining is neu-
tral compression, while the moment distribution
is compression or tension in different point of lin-
ing. Increase in shear wave velocity corresponds to
more uniformity or stiffness in the soil resulting
in fewer tendencies for oval shape deformations
(deformation from circular to oval shape will result
in more bending moment in the lining).
Figures  2c and 2d shows the reduction of the
crest and surface settlements as results of shear
wave velocity increase. The latter is due to more
stiffness in the soil by increasing the shear wave
Figure 2.  Static analysis results for tunnels with 15 and
25 meters depths.
73
velocity resulting in less effect of the overburden
soil and finally decrease of the crest settlement. In
a similar manner, the increase in the stiffness of the
soil reduces the excavation effects on the ground
surface, resulting in less surface settlements with
increasing the shear wave velocity.
4.1.2  Tunnel depth effect
From Figures 2a and 2b, it can be concluded that
the values of axial forces and bending moments
will be increased with increase in tunnel depth, due
to the more stress on the tunnel lining in deeper
tunnels. The effect of depth has been more sig-
nificant about the axial forces, referring to more
dependency of the axial forces on the tunnel depth.
Also the results of the figures 2c and 2d shows
the strong dependency of the crest settlement on
the tunnel depths, while the surface settlement var-
iations are more dependent on the soil type and its
shear wave velocity.
It can be noted that the graphs of different tun-
nels depth are tending to gather with increasing the
shear wave velocity, referring the reduction of the
tunnel depth effect.
4.1.3  Static analysis of the twin tunnels
Figure 3 present the variations of the normalized
moment, axial forces and displacements versus the
(d/D) ratio for twin tunnels with 15 meters depth
(d/D  =  distance between tunnels center to tunnel
diameter ratio).
The analysis has been performed for two soil
conditions with 257 and 800  m/s the values of
maximum moments, axial forces and displace-
ments of the twin tunnel are normalized to their
corresponding values of the single tunnels for simi-
lar condition. The surface settlement refers to set-
tlement of the ground surface in the middle point
between the tunnels.
4.1.3.1  Distance and shear wave velocity effects
From Figures 3a to 3d, it can be concluded that the
values of forces or settlements has been increased
considerably in comparison to single tunnels.
For d/D  =  1.2 (the distance between center of
tunnels is equal to 12 meters), the axial forces val-
ues has been increased about 35% as an average
value for different type of the soil, where shear
wave velocity of the soil has not shown significant
effect on the axial force variation.
In contrary to axial forces, the type of the soil
has been shown a significant effect on the intensi-
fication of the moment values (Figure 3b), where
the values of intensified moments differ about 30%
for two different soils. This difference is became
diminished with increasing the distance between
tunnels, referring the reduction of the soil type
effect for more far away tunnels. Similar trends are
 4.2  Dynamic analysis results
In order to investigate the dynamic behavior of the
single and twin circular tunnels, the models were
analyzed with Loma Prieta earthquake accelogram
(Figure 4). Figure 5 present some results of the lin-
ing moment variations during earth quake loading.
Dynamic analysis results for tunnels with 15
and 25 meters depth are presented in Figure 6. The
maximum moments or axial forces during earth-
quake are illustrated with “Max”, while the resid-
ual moments or axial forces after the earth quake
are illustrated with “Res”.

4.2.1  Shear wave velocity effects

As can be seen in Figure  6a, the maximum and
residual values of the dynamic axial forces doesn’t
show significant variation with shear wave velocity

Figure  4.  Loma Prieta accelogram used for dynamic

analysis.

Figure 3.  Static analysis results: normalized parameters

variations of twin tunnels versus distance for different
soil condition (tunnel depths: 15 m).

concluded about the crest and surface settlements

(Figures 3c and 3d). For near distance (d/D = 1.2),
the type of the soil is strongly effective on the set-
tlement intensification, where loose soils with less
shear wave velocity shows more intensified set-
tlements. With increasing d/D ratio or distance
between tunnels, the graphs difference due to dif-
ferent soil type has been diminished.
General trend of Figures 3a to 3d shows that for
d/D ratio greater than 2.2, the forces or displace-
ment values have not any significant difference Figure 5.  Some examples of the lining moment varia-
with corresponding single tunnels values. tions during earth quake loading.

74
and almost remain constant for different types of
the soils. Figure 6b shows that the maximum and
residual moments of the dynamic loading decrease
with increasing the shear wave velocity, similar to
what observed for static analysis. Of course the val-
ues of dynamic analysis have been increased con-
siderably in respect to static loading.
Considering the static and dynamic analysis
results, it seems that the moment variation is con-
siderably dependent on the soil type and shear wave
velocity, while the axial forces values hasn’t shown
significant variations for different soil types.
4.2.2  Depth effect
In order to better investigate the effect of tunnel
depth on the moment and axial forces variations,
the variations of maximum axial force and maxi-
mum moment versus depth of tunnel is presented in
Figure 7. As can be seen in Figure 7a, the axial forces
variation with depth is considerable, but the graphs
of different soils have not shown significant differ-
ence. In contrast, from Figure 7b it can be seen that
the moment variation with depth is insignificant,
while difference of soil type and shear wave velocity
has resulted a great difference between the results.
The above conclusion dictates again that the
moment variations is mainly dependent on the
soil type and tunnel depth hasn’t significant effect
on its variations, while axial force variation is
Figure 6.  Dynamic analysis results: Variations of lining
moment and axial forces with shear wave velocity for tun-
nel with 15 and 25 meters depth.
75
considerably dependent on the tunnel depth and
overburden pressure without significant depend-
ency on the shear wave velocity or soil type.
4.2.3  Dynamic analysis of twin tunnels
Figure  8 presents the variations of normalized
maximum axial force and maximum moment ver-
sus d/D ratio, for tunnel with 15  meters depth.
Similar to static case, the dynamic analysis is per-
formed for two different soil types, with shear wave
velocities equal to 257 and 800  m/s the values of
maximum moment and maximum axial forces are
normalized to corresponding values of single tun-
nel for similar condition.
4.2.3.1  Effect of distance and shear wave
velocity
Considering Figures  8a and 8b, it can be con-
cluded that the distance between twin tunnels is
less effective on the intensification of the maximum
moment and axial forces in comparison to static
case. Dynamic analysis results have shown that the
increase of maximum moment is insignificant even
for very little distance between tunnels. Also the
increase and intensification of the maximum axial
forces is less in comparison to the static case. As an
example, for d/D  =  1.2, the maximum moment is
intensified about 60% for static loading, while the
increase of the maximum moment for similar con-
dition and due to dynamic loading is less than 10%.
Figure 7.  Dynamic analysis results: Variations of maxi-
mum lining moment and axial forces with depth for soils
with different shear wave velocities.

Figure  8.  Dynamic analysis results: Variations of
the normalized maximum axial force and moment
versus d/D ratio for different soils (depth of twin
tunnels = 15 meters).
The graphs of different soils in Figures 8a and
8b are almost similar and their difference is insig-
nificant. It means that in contrary to what observed
for static analysis, the effect of soil type and shear
wave velocity on the interaction of twin tunnels is
insignificant under dynamic loading.
5  CONCLUSIONS
The excavation effect of the single and twin tun-
nels under dynamic and static loading and also the
effect of soil type, tunnel depth and the distance
between twin tunnels have been investigated. The
most important results are as follows:
– based on the dynamic and static analysis results,
the lining axial forces variations are mainly
dependent on the tunnel depth and overbur-
den pressure, while the moment variations are
mainly dependent on the soil type and shear
wave velocity without significant dependency on
the tunnel depth.
– increasing the tunnel depth and over burden
pressure will result in considerable crest settle-
ment increase. Surface settlements are mainly
dependent on the soil type and shear wave
velocity without significant dependency on the
76
tunnel depth. Less shear wave velocity values will
results in increased crest and surface settlements.
– based on the static analysis results, the intensifi-
cation of the moment, axial force and settlements
due to interaction of twin tunnels is consider-
able especially for small distance between tun-
nels. Also the effect of soil type is considerable
and less shear wave velocity values will results in
more intensified moments and settlements. For
d/D ratio greater than 2.2, the results gradually
tend to the single tunnel results and the interac-
tion between twin tunnels became insignificant.
– under dynamic loading, the interaction effects
of twin tunnels on the intensification of axial
forces is less in comparison to static case, while
the moment variations is also insignificant.
Also it was concluded that the effects of soil
type and shear wave velocity on the interaction
of twin tunnels is insignificant under dynamic
loading.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The writers would like to thank the respected
reviewers for their worth full comments.
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