Abstract
A method to evaluate the stability of tunnel face is proposed in the framework of upper bound theorem. The safety factor which is widely applied in slope stability analysis is introduced to estimate the stability of tunnel face using the upper bound theorem of limit analysis in conjunction with a strength reduction technique. Considering almost all geomaterials following a nonlinear failure criterion, a generalized tangential technique is used to calculate the external work and internal energy dissipation in the kinematically admissible velocity field. The upper bound solution of safety factor is obtained by optimization calculation. To evaluate the validity of the method proposed in this paper, the safety factor is compared with those calculated by limit equilibrium method. The comparison shows the solutions derived from these two methods match each other well, which shows the method proposed in this paper can be considered as effective.
Highlights
Shallow tunnels are very common nowadays in municipal engineering construction as they make traveling more convenient and reduce engineering costs
To evaluate the validity of the method proposed in this work, the FOS of tunnel face is calculated by limit equilibrium method and the upper bound theorem with shear strength reduction technique
The upper bound theorem combined with shear strength reduction technique is adopted to calculate the FOS of shallow tunnel face in the framework of nonlinear failure criterion
Summary
Shallow tunnels are very common nowadays in municipal engineering construction as they make traveling more convenient and reduce engineering costs. As the mechanism proposed by Leca and Dormieux [12] is supported by centrifuge model tests and well reflects the mechanical characteristics of failure mode for shallow tunnel face, many scholars used this mechanism to analyze the stability of shallow tunnel face under various conditions [13,14,15,16] These literatures mentioned above all used linear MohrCoulomb criterion. Based on the failure mechanism proposed by Leca and Dormieux [12], Huang and Yang [19] calculated the upper bound solution of retaining pressure on the tunnel face using the upper bound theorem in conjunction with nonlinear failure criterion. The influence of nonlinear parameter on the stability of tunnel face is investigated
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