Deep excavation may have impact on the adjacent tunnels. It is obvious that the excavation will adversely affect and even damage the existing tunnels if the induced deformation exceeds the capacity of tunnel structures. It hence creates a high necessity to predict tunnel displacement induced by nearby excavation to ensure the safety of tunnel. In this paper, a simplified method to evaluate the heave of the underlying tunnel induced by adjacent excavation is presented and verified by field measurement results. In the proposed model, the tunnel is represented by a series of short beams connected by tensile springs, compressional springs and shear springs, so that the rotational effect and shearing effect of the joints between lining rings can be captured. The proposed method is compared with the previous modelling methods (e.g., Euler-Bernoulli beam, a series of short beams connected only by shear springs) based on a field measured longitudinal deformation of subway tunnels. Results of these case studies show a reasonable agreement between the predictions and observations.

To investigate the effect of spatial variability on hydraulic properties of unsaturated soils, a numerical model is set up which can simulate seepage process in an unsaturated heterogeneous soil. The unsaturated heterogeneous soil is composed of matrix sand embedded with a small proportion of clay for simulating the heterogeneity. Soil-water characteristic curve and unsaturated hydraulic conductivity curve of the unsaturated soil are expressed by Van Genuchten model. Hydraulic parameters of the matrix sand are considered as random fields. Different autocorrelation lengths (ACLs) of hydraulic parameter of the matrix sand and different proportions of clay are assumed to investigate the influence of spatial variability on the equivalent hydraulic properties of the heterogeneous soil. Four model sizes are used in the numerical experiments to investigate the influence of scale effects and to determine the sizes of representative volume element (RVE) in the numerical simulations. Through a number of Monte Carlo simulations of unsaturated seepage analysis, the means and the coefficients of variations (COVs) of the equivalent hydraulic parameters of the heterogeneous soil are calculated. Simulations show that the ACL and model size has little influence on the means of the equivalent hydraulic parameters, but they have a large influence on the COVs of the equivalent hydraulic parameters. The size of an RVE is mainly affected by the ACL and the proportion of heterogeneity. The influence of spatial variability on the hydraulic parameters of the heterogeneous unsaturated soil can be used as a guidance for geotechnical reliability analysis and design related to unsaturated soils.

Soil-water retention curve (SWRC) contains key information for the application of unsaturated soil mechanics principles to engineering practice. The SWRC variables are commonly used to describe the hydro-mechanics of soils. Generally, these parameters are determined using the graphical method which can be time consuming. The SWRC is highly dependent on the pore size distribution (PSD). Theoretically, the PSD obtained by mercury intrusion porosimetry test can be used to determine some SWRC variables. Moreover, the relationship between SWRC and shrinkage curve has been investigated. A new method to determine total SWRC variables directly without curve-fitting procedure is proposed. Substituting the variables into linear SWRC equations construct SWRC. A good agreement was obtained between predicted and measured SWRCs, indicating the validity of the proposed method for unimodal SWRC.

The tunnel collapse, large deformation of surrounding rock, water and mud inrush are the major geological disasters in soft rock tunnel construction. Among them, tunnel collapse has the most serious impact on tunnel construction. Current research backed theories have certain limitations in identifying the collapse risk of soft rock tunnels. Examining the Zhengwan high-speed railway tunnel, eight soft rock tunnel collapse influencing factors were selected, and the combination of indicator weights based on the analytic hierarchy process and entropy weighting methods was obtained. The results show that the groundwater condition and the integrity of the rock mass are the main influencing factors leading to a soft rock tunnel collapse. A comprehensive fuzzy evaluation model for the collapse risk of soft rock tunnels is being proposed, and the real-time collapse risk assessment of the Zhengwan tunnel is being carried out. The results obtained via the fuzzy evaluation model agree well with the actual situation. A tunnel section evaluated to have an extremely high collapse risk and experienced a local collapse during excavation, verifying the feasibility of the collapse risk evaluation model. The collapse risk evaluation model proposed in this paper has been demonstrated to be a promising and innovative method for the evaluation of the collapse risk of soft rock tunnels, leading to safer construction.

This paper presents analysis of the interaction between tunnel and Qanat with a particular interest for the optimization of Qanat shape using the discrete element code, PFC2D, and the results will be compared with the FEM results of PLAXIS2D. For these concerns, using software PFC2D based on Discrete Element Method (DEM), a model with dimension of 100m ^⁎ 100 m was prepared. A circular tunnel with dimension of 9 m was situated 20 m below the ground surface. Also one Qanat was situated perpendicularly above the tunnel roof. Distance between Qanat center and ground surface was 8 m. Five different shapes for Qanat were selected i.e., square, semi-circular, vertical ellipse, circular and horizontal ellipse. Confining pressure of 5 MPa was applied to the model. The vertical displacement of balls situated in ground surface was picked up to measure the ground subsidence. Also two measuring circles were situated at the tunnel roof and at the Qanat roof to check the vertical displacements. The properties of the alluvial soil of Tehran city are: γ_dry=19 (KN/㎥), E= 750 (kg/㎠), ν=0.35, c=0.3(kg/㎠), φ=34°. In order to validate the DEM results, a comparison between the numerical results (obtained in this study) and analytical and field monitoring have been done. The PFC2D results are compared with the FEM results. The results shows that when Qanat has rectangular shape, the tensile stress concentration at the Qanat corners has maximum value while it has minimum value for vertical ellipse shape. The ground subsidence for Qanat rectangular shape has maximum value while it has minimum value for ellipse shape of Qanat. The vertical displacements at the tunnel roof for Qanat rectangular shape has maximum value while it has minimum value for ellipse shape of Qanat. Historical shape of Qante approved the finding of this research.

The failure behavior and tensile strength of sandstone materials under different strain rates are greatly different, especially under static loads and impact loads. In order to clearly investigate the failure mechanism of sandstone materials under static and impact loads, a series of Brazilian disc samples were used by employing green sandstone, red sandstone and black sandstone to carry out static and impact loading splitting tensile tests, and the failure properties subjected to two different loading conditions were analyzed and discussed. Subsequently, the failure behavior of sandstone materials also were simulated by finite element code. The good agreement between simulation results and experimental results can obtain the following significantly conclusions: (1) The relationship of the tensile strength among sandstone materials is that green sandstone < red sandstone < black sandstone, and the variation of the tensile sensitivity of sandstone materials is that green sandstone > red sandstone > black sandstone; (2) The mainly cause for the difference of dynamic tensile strength of sandstone materials is that the strength of crystal particles in sandstone material, and the tensile strength of sandstone is proportional to the fractal dimension; (3) The dynamic failure behavior of sandstone is greatly different from that of static failure behavior, and the dynamic tensile failure rate in dynamic failure behavior is about 54.92%.

Piles installed in row(s) are used as an effective technique to improve the stability of soil slopes. The analysis of pile-stabilized slopes require a reliable prediction of lateral resistance offered by the piles. In this work, an analytical solution is developed to estimate the lateral resistance offered by the stabilizing piles in sand and c - 𝜙 soil slopes considering soil arching phenomenon. The soil arching in both horizontal direction (between the neighboring piles) and vertical direction (in the active wedge in front of the pile row) are studied and their effects are incorporated in the proposed model. The shape of soil arch is assumed to be circular and principal stress trajectories are defined separately for both modes of arching. Experimental and numerical studies found in literature were used to validate the proposed method. A detailed parametric analysis was performed to study the influence of pile diameter, center-to-center spacing, slope angle and angle of internal friction on the lateral pile resistance.

The prediction of soil response under repetitive mechanical loadings remains challenging in geotechnical engineering applications. Modeling the cyclic soil response requires a robust model validation with an experimental dataset. This study proposes a unique method adopting linearity of model constant with the number of cycles. The model allows the prediction of the terminal density of sediments when subjected to repetitive changes in pore-fluid pressure based on the two-surface plasticity. Model simulations are analyzed in combination with an experimental dataset of sandy sediments when subjected to repetitive changes in pore fluid pressure under constant deviatoric stress conditions. The results show that the modified plastic moduli in the two-surface plasticity model appear to be critical for determining the terminal density. The methodology introduced in this study is expected to contribute to the prediction of the terminal density and the evolution of shear strain at given repetitive loading conditions.