Excavation of Komorany Tunnel in Sand: A Case Study

This paper presents a study of the accuracy of two-dimensional (2D) finite-element predictions of a displacement field of retaining structures supporting the excavation next to the Komorany tunnel in Prague, Czech Republic. The ground material is a Komorany sand, which is a sand with some gravel and almost no fines. Two different constitutive models were used to represent the mechanical behavior of Komorany sand, namely the standard Mohr-Coulomb model and a hypoplastic model for sands with intergranular strain. High-quality laboratory investigation was performed and used for calibrating the model parameters. In addition, good-quality displacement field measurements were used as a benchmark for the models' predictions. The simulation results suggest that the hypoplastic model predicts both the laboratory and field measurement results with more accuracy. A discussion about the importance of the correct selection of the constitutive model on the prediction of boundary value problems is also presented.

Automated summary

This paper presents a study on the accuracy of 2D finite-element predictions of a displacement field for retaining structures supporting the excavation next to the Komorany tunnel in Prague, Czech Republic. Two different constitutive models were used, and the hypoplastic model showed more accuracy in predicting both laboratory and field measurement results. The paper also discusses the importance of selecting the correct constitutive model for predicting boundary value problems.