Numerical study on the use of soft material walls to enhance seismic performance of an existing tunnel

Abstract

Seismic risk is one of the biggest challenges for tunnel safety, and several mitigation techniques have been proposed to enhance the seismic performance of existing tunnels. This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative approach for reducing the seismic risk of existing tunnels by using soft material walls (SMW) symmetrically installed in the surrounding soils. The investigation is performed with a two-dimensional numerical model and the effectiveness of SMW in mitigating the seismic-induced lining forces is quantitatively evaluated by reduction ratio. The influences of nonlinear properties of soil, SMW and tunnel lining on the isolation effectiveness are also discussed. The parametric studies show that the computed reduction ratio is strongly affected by the modulus ratio between the SMW and the soil, the wall geometric parameter, and the flexibility ratio. It is more effective for the thick and soft isolation walls that are inserted near a stiff tunnel in the soft soil. The tunnel seismic response can be reduced by up to 50% for the scenarios investigated. Notably, the parametric study identifies an optimum normalized depth of SMW and recommends a relation between the maximum isolation effect and the flexibility ratio. Finally, simple charts are suggested in this work for estimating the isolation effect in specific conditions of the soil and the tunnel. Along these lines, the results of this work may be used in the seismic retrofitting of an existing tunnel, aiding the preliminary design of the isolation walls.