Tunnel Face Stability Considering the Influence of Excess Slurry Pressure

Junhao Zhong, Shihe Zhao, Pengqin Wang and Chuantan Hou ()
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Junhao Zhong: School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Shihe Zhao: School of Geosciences and Info-physics, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China
Pengqin Wang: School of Architecture, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Chuantan Hou: School of Civil Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410075, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-21

Abstract: With excess slurry pressures exerted on the tunnel face, slurry particles tend to infiltrate into the soil in front of the tunnel. There will be excess pore pressure ahead of the tunnel in the case of infiltration, leading to an impairment in the supporting effect contributed by the excess slurry pressure. Corresponding to three slurry infiltration scenarios distinguished by the forms of the filter cake, different pressure transfer models are employed to describe the pore pressure distribution. Using the kinematic approach of limit analysis and the numerically simulated seepage field, the study of tunnel face stability under different slurry infiltration cases is extended by employing a 3D discretization-based failure mechanism. In addition, two simple empirical formulas describing the pore pressure distributions above the tunnel and in advance of the tunnel are established and verified. Combined with the dichotomy method and strength reduction method, the safety factors yielding rigorous upper-bound solutions are obtained by optimization. The proposed method is validated by a comparative analysis. The developed framework allows considering the influence of excess pore pressure on the whole failure mechanism and the three-dimensional characteristics of seepage. A parameter analysis is performed to study the effect of the excess slurry pressure, hydraulic conditions, soil strength properties, and pressure drop coefficient. The results show that the steady-state flow model leads to much more conservative results than the full-membrane model. The safety factor increases with the increasing excess slurry pressure and the decreasing pressure drop coefficient. The present work provides an effective framework to quickly assess the face stability of tunnels under excess slurry pressure considering different filter cake scenarios.

Keywords: tunnel face stability; excess slurry pressure; limit analysis; slurry infiltration cases; empirical formulas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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