Stress dilatancy analysis of shallow tunnels subjected to unsymmetrical pressure

Abstract

Numerical simulation using finite differential code was conducted for the single line railway and four-lane road shallow tunnels subjected to unsymmetrical pressure. The mechanical behavior of weak rock mass was studied considering the influences of stress dilatancy on the failure mechanisms, and the results of numerical simulation were compared with the analytical solutions in specifications. The results show that the dilatancy angle has great influences on the surrounding rock displacement and the shape of failure face for the shallow tunnels. When the dilatancy angle equals zero, the failure face of the surrounding rock forms and extends to the ground surface. With the dilatancy angle increasing, the loose region decreases gradually, and failure surface discontinues. When the dilatancy angle equals the friction angle, the loose region is only distributed in a small range around the crown and sidewalls. On the side of smaller buried depth, the difference of break angle between numerical simulation and the code is less than 10% for single line railway tunnels with the dilatancy angle of zero. However, for the four-lane road tunnels, the difference reaches 20.8%. On the side of larger buried depth, the break angles are smaller than those by the code, the difference reaches 16.8% for single line railway tunnels, and 13.8% for four-lane road tunnels. With the dilatancy angle increasing, especially the dilatancy angle approximating to internal friction angle, it is on safe side to calculate the break angle using the analytical solution method of specifications. Therefore, the influence of stress dilatancy should be considered while determining the failure mechanisms of shallow tunnels subjected to unsymmetrical pressure in weak rocks.

Keywords

stress dilatancy / shallow tunnel / failure mechanism / unsymmetrical pressure