Influence of pore water pressure on upper bound analysis of collapse shape for square tunnel in Hoek-Brown media

Abstract

To investigate the effective shape of collapsing block in square tunnel subjected to pore water pressure, the analytical solution of detaching curve was derived using upper bound theorem of limit analysis with Hoek-Brown failure criterion. The work rate of pore water pressure, which was regarded as an external rate of work, was taken into account in the framework of limit analysis. Taking advantages of variational calculation, the objective function with respect to detaching curve was optimized to obtain the effective shape of collapsing block for square tunnel. According to the numerical results, it is found that the varying pore water pressure coefficient only affects the height and width of the collapsing block, whereas the shape of collapsing block remains unchanged.

Keywords

upper bound theorem / square tunnel / pore water pressure / variational calculation / Hoek-Brown media