Surface settlement induced by frictional force of epb shield tunneling in sandy gravels.

The excavation of Earth Pressure Balance (EPB) shield can be divided into two distinct stages, i.e. advancing and lining installation. The frictional force applied on surrounding soils reverses at these two stages, which is harmful to the settlement control. Based on Mindlin's method, a new model of surface settlement is derived to involve the reversed friction. A closed form formula is then obtained for the major type of metro tunnels. Main operational parameters are also used as input of the formula. Numerous operational data and measured settlements are collected from EPB tunnels of Chengdu Metro, Line 7. The proposed formula is validated against these field data in sandy gravels. It is shown that the new formula gives reasonable prediction of surface settlement along the tunnel sections. The accuracy of new formula is significantly higher than that of Peck's formula. This study provides a new vision in settlement control of EPB shield tunneling. The increase of chamber pressure will induce higher negative friction during the lining installation. Therefore, surface settlement of EPB tunneling cannot be controlled by just increasing chamber pressure. A balanced relationship between the chamber pressure and the thrust should be maintained instead.

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Copyright: © 2024 Rong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.