Evaluation of seismic performance of road tunnels in operation

Abstract

This study evaluates the seismic performance of road tunnels designed before the provisions for seismic design of tunnels were first established in 1999. Extensive design data and site investigation reports are investigated to select tunnels sections that are considered to be most susceptible to seismically induced damage under earthquake loading. Detailed analyses are performed on selected tunnels. The methods used are method of displacement and dynamic analysis. In performing the method of displacement, which is a type of pseudo-static analysis method used for underground structures, full domain and reduced domain modeling were used. The dynamic analyses are performed using finite difference method and using nonlinear constitutive model. Comparisons show that the reduced domain method of displacement match very closely with the dynamic analysis, demonstrating that it is the most suitable method for evaluating the seismic performance of road tunnels built in rocks. It is also shown that road tunnels, for which seismic design were not applied, are safe under the seismic risks corresponding to an earthquake with a return period 1000 years. It is concluded that additional seismic retrofit of tunnels is not necessary.