Parallelized computational modeling of pile–soil interactions in mechanized tunneling

Abstract

The construction of tunnels in soft ground causes short and long term ground deformations resulting from the disturbance of the virgin stress state of the soil and the changing pore water conditions. In particular in urban tunneling, in each stage of the construction process, interactions between the construction process, the soil and existing building infrastructure need to be evaluated to limit the risk of damage on existing buildings and to decide on appropriate mitigation measures. Besides conventional tunneling, mechanized tunneling is a well established and flexible technology in particular in urban areas, which allows for tunnel advances in a wide range of soils and difficult conditions. The paper presents a finite element model for the simulation of interactions between mechanized tunnel construction, the surrounding soil and existing buildings resting on pile foundations in the framework of a process-oriented simulation model for mechanized tunneling. The performance of the model is demonstrated by means of selected prototype analyses. As a consequence of the high computational demand connected with this type of spatio-temporal simulations, problem specific parallelization techniques are investigated to increase the numerical efficiency of the numerical analyses.