Experimental study on the leakage-induced structural collapse of segmental tunnels

Abstract

During the construction of segmental tunnels, unexpected leakage poses a significant safety hazard to the tunnel structures, potentially leading to collapse. Worldwide, accidents caused by leakage during the construction of shield tunnels have resulted in substantial losses. However, existing studies have not clearly elucidated the mechanism behind tunnel collapse induced by leakage, making it challenging to propose effective prevention or control measures. To address this issue, a series of model tests on tunnel collapse induced by leakage were designed and conducted. These tests replicated the tunnel collapse process and revealed three stages: seepage erosion, soil cave formation and destabilization, and soil impact. The soil caves develop upward, leading to a redistribution of external pressure on the tunnels. Ultimately, the structural collapse of the tunnel occurs due to soil impact from the unstable soil cave. Comparing tunnel entrance/exit accidents with connecting passage accidents highlights that both accident types share the same underlying mechanism but differ in boundary conditions.

Keywords

Leakage-induced collapse / Segmental tunnel / Seepage erosion / Soil arch / Impact effect

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Qihao Sun: Writing - original draft, Validation, Investigation, Formal analysis. Xian Liu: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Project administration, Methodology, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. Yihai Bao: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Wouter De Corte: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Luc Taerwe: Writing - review & editing, Supervision.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52078376). The first author would like to express his appreciation for the scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (No. 202106260163) for his study at Ghent University.

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