Comparative study on earthquake-induced soil–tunnel structure interaction effects under good and poor soil conditions

Abstract

The effects of soil–tunnel structure interaction are proved to be quite significant, particularly under earthquake excitation. The influence of earthquakes on a tunnel–ground interaction depends on the peak acceleration, the intensity and duration of the earthquake, and outmost on the relative rigidity between the tunnel and the ground. With an aim to study the effects of tunnel–ground interaction, two-dimensional simplified dynamic linear analyses have been undertaken using the finite element based commercial software ANSYS. The present study employs a continuous FE model in order to estimate the soil–structure interaction effects regarding tunnel structures under earthquake action, for the cases of both good and poor soil conditions. The earthquake loading is simulated under simple shear conditions obtained by means of a one-dimensional free-field site response analysis in the code EERA. The obtained numerical results are compared to the most frequently used analytical expressions, and by that, a capability of the models to simulate the most important aspects of the SSI effects is validated. Furthermore, a comparison of the results for the cases of dense and loose soil conditions is performed, and their reliability, considerable mutual differences, as well as significant factors influencing tunnel–ground interaction for both cases, are evaluated.

keywords:

• circular tunnel
• dense sand/saturated clay
• earthquake
• plane-strain conditions
• numerical analysis
• soil–structure interaction

Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia [Scientific-research projects TR 36028 (2011–2014) and ON 174027 (2011–2014)].