Abstract
The collapsibility is one of the key properties for loess. Harmful impacts on the metro tunnels could be obviously subjected to the soaking collapsibility in collapsible loess. However, loess soaking cannot be effectively modeled by the existing centrifugal test equipment (CTE) due to its inherent limitations. In the present paper, a water soaking system (WSS) was improved based on the existing CTE for simulating various loess soaking conditions. The WSS was made of a water storage subsystem and a water distribution subsystem. Some tests were conducted to show the capability of the improved WSS in centrifugal model tests firstly, then it was used to carry out centrifugal model tests on a metro tunnel under full-range and half-range foundation soaking conditions with different soaking depths. The impacts of various soaking conditions on the mechanical properties of the metro tunnel were discussed in detail.
Highlights
As a part of the city transport line, the metro tunnel is becoming increasingly more important which can take full advantage of the underground space
The currently soaking method used in centrifugal test equipment (CTE) could not well reproduce the actual foundation soaking condition, and very few studies have been carried out successfully to investigate the influence of foundation soaking on the metro tunnel by centrifugal model tests
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the improvement of water soaking system (WSS) for foundation soaking in metro tunnels has not been reported so far, and research on the influence of different foundation soaking conditions on metro tunnel was rarely conducted, and investigations on foundation soaking by centrifugal model tests are hardly seen
Summary
As a part of the city transport line, the metro tunnel is becoming increasingly more important which can take full advantage of the underground space. Different collapsible conditions of the metro tunnel caused by foundation soaking cannot be well simulated in the currently CTE [21, 28,29,30,31] due to its inherent limitations. The currently soaking method used in CTE could not well reproduce the actual foundation soaking condition, and very few studies have been carried out successfully to investigate the influence of foundation soaking on the metro tunnel by centrifugal model tests. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the improvement of WSS for foundation soaking in metro tunnels has not been reported so far, and research on the influence of different foundation soaking conditions on metro tunnel was rarely conducted, and investigations on foundation soaking by centrifugal model tests are hardly seen. Some tests were conducted to show the capability of the improved WSS in centrifugal model tests firstly, a series of centrifugal model tests related to half-range and full-range foundation soaking with different soaking depths were conducted and the influence of different foundation soaking conditions on the mechanical properties of the metro tunnel was discussed systematically
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