Prediction of Surface Settlement Induced by Large-Diameter Shield Tunneling Based on Machine-Learning Algorithms

Abstract

The accurate prediction of surface settlement caused by large-diameter shield tunneling is crucial for the safety of the tunnel environment. However, due to the complexity and uncertainty of the rock-machine interaction and groundwater variation, it is difficult to predict the settlement by developing traditional theoretical methods. Recently, a big number of data obtained from the Chunfeng shield tunnel in China provides the possibility to predict the settlement using machine-learning methods. In this study, the equipment parameters, the geological parameters, and the monitored settlements are used to establish the models. Three machine-learning algorithms (i.e., long-short-term memory (LSTM), random forest (RF), and gated recurrent unit (GRU)) are used to predict the surface settlement. Three indicators, mean absolute error (MAE), accuracy (ACC), and coefficient of determination ( R 2 ), are selected to evaluate the prediction performance. Results demonstrated that the filtering and selection of model parameters is vitally important to the accuracy of model prediction. Among the three machine-learning algorithms, the LSTM algorithm gives the best accuracy in predicting the maximum surface settlement and can effectively predict the settlement development in different strata.