Theoretical Method of Chamber Pressure for EPB Shield Tunneling Under-Crossing Existing Metro Tunnels

As an increasing number of metro lines have been planned or executed in urban area, new tunnel undercrossing existing tunnels has been commonly practiced. Construction of the existing tunnel causes disturbance to the surrounding soil and hence affects the operational parameters of undercrossing tunneling especially the chamber pressure of EPB machine. However, very limited research studies this effect. To fill the gap of knowledge, this paper proposed a new method for calculating the chamber pressure of EPB tunneling machine in undercrossing project. First, the effect of existing tunnel on surrounding soil is classified as removal-and-replacement effect, excavation-induced-disturbance effect, and elastic foundation beam effect. Second, based on analysis of the mutual interaction between existing tunnel and the undercrossing tunneling, three zones have been identified to study the chamber pressure of EPB machine. Next, a new method is proposed to calculate the chamber pressure in the process of undercrossing existing tunnel. Finally, the proposed method has been verified with measured data from two engineering cases. The comparison results show that the proposed method is in good agreement with the measured data, indicating that it is reasonable with high accuracy.