Pile-soil-tunnel interaction in some layered soil profiles

J. Zou, Y. K. Chow, G. R. Dasari, C. F. Leung, C. S. Ng

Department of Civil Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore engp1572; cvechow; cvegrd; cvelcf & eng90474@nus.edu.sg

Abstract: This paper presents the results of a study carried out to investigate the settlement induced in existing tunnel by piles during loading in some layered soil profiles. The function of debonding is also investigated. The analysis indicates that while the debonded pile may be able to mitigate its effects on tunnel, the interaction behavior is strongly affected by tunnel depth to pile length ratio and soil properties.

INTRODUCTION

DEBONDING

The effect of tunneling on piled foundations is a subject of great interest. Mair & Taylor (1997) reviewed case histories, the results of numerical analyses and model tests relating to this problem. A two-step procedure has also been developed for the analysis of this problem: (i) using semi-analytical (Loganathan & Poulos, 1998; Chen et al., 1999) or numerical solutions (Cheng et al., 2002) to predict tunneling induced ground movements, and (ii) analyzing the performance of pile subjected to such ground movements (Chen et al., 1999; Cheng et al., 2002). An interrelated problem, which has received less attention but nevertheless is important, is that of piled foundations constructed close to existing tunnels. Benton & Phillips (1991) analyzed the stress changes and deformations of two existing tunnels beneath a building founded on bored piles. The method of analysis was based on two-dimensional finite element method, and the effects on tunnel during both construction and loading of the piles were considered. Calabrese & Monaco (2001) performed 2-D plane strain analysis using FLAC and evaluated the effects induced in the existing deep tunnels by driving foundation piles. The increase in stresses in the lining was also estimated. Higgins et al. (2000) proposed a five-stage procedure based on a twodimensional model and analyzed the effects of installation of piles close to existing tunnels. Responses of tunnel during both pile installation and loading of the piles were considered; debonding of the piles was also taken into account. But, as only two-dimensional analyses were found in the literature, it is questionable whether they can properly simulate a truly 3-D problem. The pile-soil-tunnel interaction problem in an urban environment deserves more attention. However, such interaction is not well understood. This is mainly due to its complexity in the diversity of pile construction methods, and more importantly the problem is truly 3-D. Typical pile and tunnel configuration is shown in Fig. 1. The objective of this paper is to study the effects of piles on existing tunnel via 3-D finite element analysis. Considering large diameter bored piles are usually used in supporting high-rise buildings in modern cities, the effects of loads acting on bored piles on nearby tunnel are investigated. Emphasis is placed on the function of debonding /sleeving, which is usually taken as a measure to mitigate the effects of pile foundations on the tunnel.

Debonding is a commonly adopted procedure to reduce the interaction between piles and tunnels. There are mainly two types of debonding: single permanent casing debonding and double permanent casing debonding with bituminous membrane sheets as debonding membrane. For piles with single permanent casing, temporary casing is usually provided to prevent the debonding membrane on the permanent casing from being damaged during installation. There is no uniform practice concerning how the debonding should be carried out, e.g. some piles are required to be debonded within a certain zone of influence, as is shown in Fig. 2 (LTA, 1996), while others are proposed to be debonded till above the invert of tunnels (Higgins et al., 2000). When a pile is fully debonded, theoretically, the applied load is transferred to the ground below the debonded zone. The actual interaction between piles, which are debonded or not debonded, and an existing tunnel is, however, not well understood.
P
S

soil
Z

tunnel

L D

pile

Fig. 1. Tunnel adjacent to single pile. 3 METHOD OF MODELING

The simulations carried out in this paper were performed using the Finite Element computer program ABAQUS (HKS, 2002). The drained condition was simulated, as long-term effects

were considered to be more significant. The soil was modeled as a linear-elastic material with a Poissons ratio of 0.3. Concrete material of grade 30 was assigned to properties of both pile and tunnel lining to simplify the present analyses. The finite element mesh was selected after consideration of mesh arrangement and boundaries. In ABAQUS, debonding of the pile was simulated by creating contact between the surface of pile (Master surface) and the surface of its surrounding soil (Slave surface) in the debonded zone, and assuming a small friction coefficient close to zero.
1st
6+R

Table 1. Soil properties of four typical soil profiles.

Soil Profile1 Fill Fluvial Old Alluvium (upper) Old Alluvium (lower) Fill Thickness(m) 2 10 8 100 ' 30 30 Thickness(m) 6 10 2 82 Thickness(m) 8 10 102 Thickness(m) 2 4 94 ' Fill Kallang Formation Jurong Formation 30 Fluvial Old Alluvium (upper) Old Alluvium (lower) Soil Profile2 t (kN/m3) 19 18 Cu (kPa) 150 240 Cu (kPa) 123 22 47 477 Cu (kPa) 50 25 250 t (kN/m3) 18 Cu (kPa) 20 600 K0 0.5 0.5 Es (MPa) 3 20 75 120 Es (MPa) 62 11 24 239 Es (MPa) 10 5 100 K0 0.5 Es (MPa) 8 6 300

2nd
Z-R

3rd
34 - (Z - R)

Reserves

ll Z

Fill Marine clay Sandy silty clay

Tunnel
R 45

Zone of influence Pile

6

Bouldery clay Soil Profile3 Fill Kallang Formation Old Alluvium Soil Profile4

40 + R

( unit: m )

Fill Kallang Formation Jurong Formation

Railway safety zone

Fig. 2. Zone of influence and length of debonding l (After LTA, 1996). 4 PILE-SOIL-TUNNEL INTERACTION IN SOME LAYERED SOIL PROFILES Settlement of a tunnel due to a loaded pile is governed by many factors, such as load on the pile, soil properties, ratio of tunnel depth to pile length, and distance from pile to tunnel. If a pile is debonded, settlement of tunnel will inevitably be affected. From preliminary studies by the authors, it has been identified that soil properties and ratio of tunnel depth to pile length are significant factors affecting the effect of debonding. In the following simulations, single pile-soil-tunnel interaction in some realistic layered soil profiles is investigated. The effect of debonding is also studied. 4.1 Typical soil profiles There are four typical soil profiles adopted in the analyses. Soil profile 1 at the site is constituted by Fill and Fluvial layers down to about 12m depth, below this level are thick upper Old Alluvium and lower Old Alluvium layers. In soil profile 2 there is approximately 6m of made ground above 10m thick Marine clay. Beneath Marine clay are a layer of sandy silty clay and a very thick layer of Bouldery clay. While, profile 3 and profile 4 are mainly made up of Kallang Formation, Old Alluvium and Kallang Formation, Jurong Formation, respectively. The properties of different soil layers, which are used in subsequent FEM analyses, are summarized in Table 1.

4.2 Geometries and working load The pile and tunnel geometries used in this study in different soil profiles are listed in Table 2. They are chosen based on simplification of realistic pile-tunnel interaction problems as follows: (i) piles within the influence zone of tunnel are fully debonded (refer to Fig 2); (ii) length of pile is determined based on the full material strength with a factor of safety of 2.5. The working load of 13250kN, determined from material capacity of pile, is applied in all the cases. Table 2. Geometries for pile and tunnel in FEM modeling (refer to Figs 1 & 2).
L (m) Profile1 Profile2 Profile3 Profile4 Profile1 Profile2 Profile3 Profile4 70 42 70 24 d (m) 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 t (m) 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25

l (m)
14 18 12 6 S (m) 12 12 12 12

D (m) 6 6 6 6 Z (m) 20 24 18 12

4.3 Selection of pile length Practically, a normally designed pile and a pile designed for debonding under the same working load may not have the same length, as contribution from top soil layers is not considered in the latter. Therefore, tunnel settlements induced by a pile with both a normally designed length (case 1) and a debonding designed length (case 2) in soil profiles 1 and 2 are examined before the study of debonding effect is carried out. In both cases, piles are not debonded, the results of which are illustrated in Table 3, where Wt1 and Wt 2 are settlements of tunnel in case 1 and case 2, respectively. Table 3. Tunnel settlement by a pile with both normally designed and debonding designed pile length.
Pf. 1 2 Case 1 L1 (m) 66 40 Wt1 (mm) 1.904 1.133 L2 (m) 70 42 Case 2 Wt2 (mm) 1.886 1.116 (Wt2-Wt1)/Wt1 -0.9%

depth to pile length, and l is the length of debonding determined following the code of LTA (refer to Fig 2). Wt , is the difference of tunnel settlement caused by a normal pile and a debonded pile (Wtd Wtn ) divided by normal pile induced tunnel settlement Wtn (refer to Eq. 1):

Wt =

Wtd Wtn 100% Wtn

(1)

It is useful to provide a means of describing the effects of debonding, e.g. a negative Wt means reduction occurs in the settlement of tunnel if the pile is debonded; while a positive Wt implies an increase in tunnel settlement due to debonding. As expected, the settlement of a debonded pile W pd is larger than that of a pile without debonding W pn in all the profiles.
X (m)
0 0.0 10 20
x

30

40

50

-1.5%
0.4

It can be seen that the pile length which is normally designed in case 1, as expected, is shorter than that designed for debonding in case 2. In profile 1, the pile length only increased by 4m if debonding-design is used, while there is an even smaller increase in profile 2. This is because the top soil layers are much weaker than lower soil layers in the adopted profiles, and hence the contribution of top soil layers is small. Therefore, although tunnel settlement is reduced when a debonding designed pile length is used, the reduction is rather small, as it is only 0.9% and 1.5% in profiles 1 and 2, respectively. Theoretically, normally designed pile length should be used to study the effects of a normal pile. However, it is shown by the above analyses that if debonding designed pile length is adopted, it will only reduce tunnel settlement by a small amount. Therefore, to simply the process of modeling, debonding designed pile length will be used in the subsequent analysis comparing the influence of a normal pile and a debonded pile. 5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Wt (mm)

0.8
Debonded

1.2 Tunnel in profile 1 longitudinal plot 1.6

Normal

2.0

Fig. 3. Settlement of tunnel along longitudinal direction.

o ( )

0 0.0

90

180

270

360

0.4
0 y

5.1 Settlement of tunnel Typical variations of settlement along the longitudinal and transverse directions of tunnel in profile 1, when the pile is debonded and without debonding, are illustrated in Figs 3 and 4, respectively. It is clear that starting from the cross-section of tunnel which is closest to the pile (where x coordinate is zero), settlement of tunnel decreases along the longitudinal direction, since the influence of pile reduces with the increase of distance, i.e. the distance between pile and any cross-section of tunnel. As far as the transverse section of tunnel with the smallest distance from the pile is concerned, larger settlement of tunnel occurs in the side closer to the pile; and the maximum value occurs when is about thirty degrees (refer to Fig 4). Similar trends of variation of tunnel settlement can be observed from other soil profiles, but debonding may not always reduce settlement of tunnel as it does in profile 1. Detailed comparison is given in the next section. 5.2 Comparison of debonding effects The maximum settlements of pile and tunnel in different soil profiles are summarized in Table 4. Z/L is the ratio of tunnel
Wt (mm)
0.8
z

Tunnel in profile 1 transversal plot

1.2

Debonded

1.6

Normal

2.0

Fig. 4. Settlement of tunnel in transversal section closest to pile ( is counter clockwise). As far as settlement of tunnel is concerned, two types of results can be observed: (i) settlement of tunnel induced by a debonded pile is smaller than that induced by a normal pile, i.e. Wt is negative, as is shown in profiles 1 and 3; (ii) settlement of tunnel by a debonded pile is unchanged or even larger than that by a normal pile, i.e. Wt is greater than or equal to zero, as is in profiles 2 and 4.

Table 4. Settlement of tunnel and pile during single pile-tunnel interaction

profile 1 2 3 4 (1) normal Wpn (mm) 11.01 9.54 13.27 6.89 Wtn (mm) 1.886 1.116 2.071 1.054 (2) debonded Wpd (mm) 11.88 10.74 13.74 6.95 Z/L 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.5 Wtd (mm) 1.816 1.138 2.012 1.054 Wt -4% 2% -3% 0%

l (m)
1 2 3 4 14 18 12 6

nearby piles. In this paper, single pile-soil-tunnel interaction in some realistic layered soil profiles, was studied; the effect of debonding was also investigated. The results of the analysis indicate that behavior of debonding is greatly influenced by Z/L ratio, and soil profile and properties. While the results show some trend, the number of cases studied is too few to generalize the explicit impact of each of these factors. For the cases considered, the effect of debonding is small. This paper is a preliminary attempt to study only one aspect of the pile-soil-tunnel interaction problem, namely the induced settlement of tunnel. It is noted that soil is a nonlinear material; the assumption of linear elastic soil behavior has a tendency to overestimate the interaction effects. These results presented will, however, need to be verified by well-controlled laboratory centrifuge experiments and field studies. Another aspect of the interaction behavior, namely the effect on stresses in the tunnel lining will also need to be investigated.

REFERENCES ABAQUS, 2002. ABAQUS Users and Theory Manuals, Version 6.3. Rhode Island: Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc. Benton, L. J. & Phillips, A., 1991. The behavior of two tunnels beneath a building on piled foundations. Proc. 10th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering: 665-668. Florence. Calabrese, M. & Monaco, P. 2001. Analysis of stresses induced in an old deep tunnel by pile driving from the surface. FLAC and Numerical Modeling in Geomechanics: 199-204. France. Chen, L. T., Poulos, H. G. & Loganathan, N. 1999. Pile Responses Caused by Tunneling. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE Vol. 125 (3): 207215. Cheng, C. Y., Dasari, G. R., Leung, C. F. & Chow, Y. K. 2002. A novel FE technique to predict tunneling induced ground movement in clays. The 15th KKCNN Symposium on Civil Engineering: 43-48. Singapore. Higgins, K.G., John, H. D. St., Chudleigh, I. L. J. & Potts, D. M. 2000. An example of a pile-tunnel interaction problem. Geotechnical Aspects of Underground Construction in Soft Ground: 99-103. Rotterdam. Loganathan, N. & Poulos, H. G. 1998. Analytical prediction for tunneling-induced ground movements in clays. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, ASCE Vol. 124 (9): 846 -856. Land Transport Authority, 1996. Code of practice for railway protection. Singapore. Mair R. J. & Taylor R. N. 1997. Bored tunneling in the urban environment. Theme lecture to the 14th international conference on soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering: 2353-2385. Hamberg.

As is well known, total load on the pile is supported by shaft friction and base resistance. In a pile-soil-tunnel interaction problem, as a pile is loaded, the tunnel will be affected by the part of the load taken by pile shaft (shaft load), as well as the part of the load taken by base (base load). If total load is not changed, the behavior of tunnel will depend on (i) the soil profile; (ii) the ratio of tunnel depth to pile length Z/L, which has been mentioned before; and (iii) the variation of proportions of load taken by shaft and base, which is induced by changes of working conditions of the pile, e.g. from a normal pile to a debonded pile. If the pile toe is relatively far from the tunnel centre, as is in profiles 1 and 3 with a small Z/L ratio of 0.3, the tunnel will be more affected by shaft load, i.e. main proportion of tunnel settlement is induced by shaft friction. In such circumstance, if the pile is debonded, shaft friction decreases and it will take a smaller proportion in the total load. As a result, settlement of tunnel reduced by 4% and 3% in profile 1 and 3, respectively ( Wt is negative). On the contrary, when the pile toe is closer to tunnel centre, as is in profile 2 with a large Z/L ratio of 0.6, base load becomes more dominant and its influence on the tunnel settlement may be more significant. In such a situation, if the pile is debonded, base load will increase its proportion in total load with the decrease of shaft friction. Therefore in this case, settlement of tunnel increases by 2% ( Wt is positive). The soil profile plays an important role in the effect of debonding in pile-soil-tunnel interaction. In any case for the soil profiles studied, the effect of debonding is small, as Wt is no more than 5%. 6 CONCLUSIONS

Numerical modeling via 3-D finite element analysis enables the estimation of the settlement of tunnel due to loads acting on