The influence of near face behaviour on monitoring of deep tunnels

Abstract

Convergence, radial displacements, and stress changes are often recorded during the advance of a tunnel for the observational tunnel design approach. In deep tunnels, instruments must be installed from underground and can seldom be placed in undisturbed ground. Consequently, observations are only partial records of the total change induced by an excavation and the influence of the three-dimensional state near the face must be considered. This paper presents results from numerical simulations to assess face effects on monitoring data. The influence of such aspects as in situ state of stress, anisotropy, nonlinearity, and plasticity (yielding ground) are evaluated. Guidelines for underground monitoring of deformations are given. Key words: tunnelling, monitoring, back-analysis, convergence, extensometers, numerical modelling.