Application of thermal insulation layer in the tunnel with high temperature subjected to strong seismic motion

ABSTRACT

Tunnels with high-temperature rocks are built in seismically active areas, which may suffer heavy damages in earthquakes. This paper aims to explore the thermal insulation effect and seismic isolation effect layer of the thermal insulation layer in high-temperature tunnels. Firstly, taking Jiwoxiga tunnel in Tibet, China as the research background, the finite difference models are established to investigate temperature fields, seismic response, and structural safety of the tunnel. Then, the two most commonly used insulation layers are applied to the support structure to study the thermal insulation effect and seismic isolation effect of the layers. Besides, the effect of factors including the thickness, elastic modulus, surrounding rock, and boundary temperature on the application of the layer are investigated in detail. The result shows that the application of the thermal insulation layer has isolated the geothermal and seismic motion propagating from the rock to linings, thus improving the structural safety of the high-temperature tunnel when encountering strong earthquakes. The thermal insulation effect of the layer in the high-temperature tunnel enhances with the increasing thickness of the layer, and its seismic isolation behaviour enhances with the increasing of the layer thickness and elastic modulus.

KEYWORDS:

• Tunnel engineering
• high-temperature tunnel
• thermal insulation layer
• seismic isolation effect
• thermal insulation behaviour

Data Availability Statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the experts of the same research group who put forward valuable opinions in the research process of this paper, and the graduate students of the same research group who helped us proofread the article in the process of writing the article.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [52178378].