Seismic stability analysis of tunnel face in purely cohesive soil by a pseudo-dynamic approach

Abstract

To give a solution for seismic stability of tunnel faces subjected to earthquake ground shakings, the pseudo-dynamic approach is originally introduced to analyze tunnel face stability in this study. In the light of the upper-bound theorem of limit analysis, an advanced three-dimensional mechanism combined with pseudo-dynamic approach is proposed. Based on this mechanism, the required support pressure on tunnel face can be obtained by equaling external work rates to the internal energy dissipation and implementing an optimization searching procedure related to time. Both time and space feature of seismic waves are properly accounted for in the proposed mechanism. For this reason, the proposed mechanism can better represent the actual influence of seismic motion and has a remarkable advantage in evaluating the effects of vertical seismic acceleration, soil amplification factor, seismic wave period and initial phase difference on tunnel face stability. Furthermore, the pseudo-dynamic approach is compared with the pseudo-static approach. The difference between them is illustrated from a new but understandable perspective. The comparison demonstrates that the pseudo-static approach is a conservative method but still could provide precise enough results as the pseudo-dynamic approach if the value of seismic wavelengths is large or the height of soil structures is small.