ALBERT

Description: During the construction of the tunnel in soft stratum, it is often found that the unsupported span is too large, resulting in instability of the tunnel face and collapse of the vault. However, the unsupported span was often selected according to the experience of engineers in the actual construction process, which was lack of the theoretical basis. Therefore, based on the calculation model of the surrounding rock pressure of shallow buried tunnel, this paper analyzed the stability of the tunnel face and the vault and then obtained the calculation formula of the unsupported span of the shallow buried tunnel in soft rock stratum. It was pointed out that the unsupported span is not determined by the arch crown stability or the tunnel face stability alone, but by both. The rationality of the formula was verified by a centrifugal test and an engineering case. The analysis and discussion showed that the unsupported span is sensitive to the cohesion and internal friction angle of the rock-soil mass, especially the cohesion. The unsupported span of the shallow buried tunnel in the soft rock stratum is a linear function of the support pressure. The support pressure has a more significant contribution to the increase of the unsupported span by the centre cross diaphragm (CRD) method, and the unsupported span increases linearly with the increase of the support pressure. The research results provide a theoretical reference for the determination of the unsupported span for the shallow tunnel in the soft stratum.

Description: Peck method and stochastic medium method are the two most commonly used methods to estimate surface settlement caused by tunnel excavation. However, the Peck method was not suitable for a shallow-buried tunnel, and the calculation process of the stochastic medium theory was complicated. To solve this problem, in this paper, a simple and accurate prediction approach for surface settlement was obtained by improving the Peck method based on the basic idea of stochastic medium theory. In detail, the over-excavation area of the tunnel was divided into n independent units, and the surface settlement caused by the collapse of each unit was calculated, respectively. Then, the total surface settlement can be obtained by superimposing surface settlement induced by each unit. Taking the shallow-buried section of Mulingguan tunnel entrance as a case, the surface settlement calculated by the modified Peck formula and original Peck formula was compared with the observed data, respectively. The comparison results indicated that the surface settlement calculated by the modified Peck formula is closer to the observed data than that calculated by the original Peck formula in the calculation process of surface settlement of shallow-buried tunnel. The table of recommendation for the number of units can be obtained by a discussion of reasonable n values. Finally, the difference between the original Peck formula and the modified Peck formula was analysed, and the results showed that the change rule of the surface settlement is consistent under the tunnel depth, internal friction angle, and ground loss of the tunnel. However, the calculation error of the surface settlements calculated by the original Peck formula is more significant than that calculated by modified Peck formula under the tunnel diameter ratio being less than 1.75. The modified Peck formula is more suitable for calculating the surface settlement under internal angle friction being less than 20° or greater than 40°. The research results expand the scope of application of the original Peck formula and enrich the calculation approach of surface settlement induced by underground excavation in tunnel construction.

Description: At present, the empirical formula is used to calculate the influence radius of surface settlement and the width of settlement trough, which lacks theoretical support. Aiming at this problem, this paper derived the theoretical calculation formula for predicting the influence radius of formation settlement based on the slices method. Then, the expression of the width of settlement trough was obtained according to the relationship between the settlement influence radius and the settlement trough width. The rationality of the formula was verified by the Heathrow Express tunnel and the Green Park tunnel. Through analysis and discussion, it was found that in the clay stratum, the settlement calculation formula can more accurately predict the surface settlement, while there is a big error in predicting the stratum settlement within 4d near the tunnel vault. In the sand layer, the internal friction angle is less than 40°, and the reinforcement surface is applied to the unsupported face to reduce the radius of influence; in the clay formation, when the cohesion is less than 50 kPa, the influence radius can be reduced by applying reinforcement measure to the unsupported face.

Description: According to the on-site vibration velocity monitoring and peak vibration velocity prediction, it is found that the maximum vibration velocity generated by the existing Dizong blasting scheme does not meet the requirements of the maximum allowable vibration velocity of houses. Therefore, the existing blasting scheme is optimized by reducing the maximum single-segment charge and a variety of damping measures such as multistage duplex wedge groove, adding damping hole, and millisecond blasting. In addition, the blasting data before and after optimization are analyzed and compared by wavelet (packet) technology. The results show that the optimized blasting main frequency domain is increased to 50∼150 Hz and the maximum vibration intensity value is reduced by 79.8%. Based on the time-energy analysis, the maximum energy value is reduced by 67.75% compared with the original scheme, and the dominant energy of the original scheme is reduced by 97.81%, 71.49%, 82.44%, 95.93%, and 93.03%, respectively, after optimization. The maximum vibration velocity generated by the optimized blasting scheme construction is 1.12 cm/s, which is less than the maximum allowable vibration velocity of the building of 1.2 cm/s, which meets the maximum allowable vibration velocity requirements of the building. The optimized blasting scheme realizes the safe and rapid construction of the two steps of the Dizong tunnel, which can provide a reference for similar engineering construction in the future.