Analytical method for mechanical analysis of multiple shallow tunnels with concrete linings

The mechanical evaluation of multiple shallow tunnels is essential for predicting the po-tential risk. In previous analytical studies, the Schwarz alternating method is the unique tool to calculate the mechanical field of multiple shallow tunnels through a complicated iterative process. This work will develop a novel analytical method to calculate the ground movement and stress caused by excavating multiple tunnels. The proposed method in-troduces an enhanced potential function to reformulate the mechanical expressions of multiply-connected domains. And then, solutions of high accuracy can be obtained directly without any iteration. The key advantage of our method is that it can analyze the mechan-ical response of arbitrary-shaped shallow tunnels, including multiple excavations, compli-cated lining structures and multi-layer soil problems. Finally, our analytical solutions are verified by the field measuring data, existing analytical method, and numerical simulation. The results turned out that our method has high precision and good practicability.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

A novel analytical method is proposed to calculate the ground movement and stress caused by excavating multiple tunnels. The method introduces an enhanced potential function to obtain solutions of high accuracy directly without iteration. The key advantage is the ability to analyze the mechanical response of arbitrary-shaped shallow tunnels, including multiple excavations and complicated lining structures.