Soil-structure interaction in shield tunnelling in soft soil

The development and extension of large cities creates a need for multiple shallow tunnels in the soft ground of building areas. Prediction of the ground settlement caused by the tunnel excavation is a major engineering challenge. A numerical simulation using a finite element method was implemented in the aim of developing a procedure to predict the movement induced by shield tunnelling in soft soil. This study describes a two-dimensional modelling and compares two procedures. The first procedure is done in a simple way (called "deconfinement modelling") simulating the excavation using a stress decrease vector exerted on the excavation boundary (inside the tunnel) described by a stress release scalar parameter a (named the "deconfinement factor"). The second procedure is composed of a complete stage of modelling (called "phase modelling") taking into account different phases which simulate the different kinds of interactions between the tunnel and the soil (deconfinement, lining installation, pore pressure applied on the lining, and weight of the lining). Using a shallow lined tunnel with homogeneous soil conditions, the two procedures are analysed and compared. Then, the second modelling procedure is applied to the case of the metro of Lyon where field data have been obtained. Observations of the results and comparison with the experimental data demonstrate that the proposed modelling is adequate for the analyses of settlement induced by tunnelling in soft soil. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.