Probabilistic assessment of existing shield tunnel longitudinal responses to tunnelling

Abstract

AbstractThis paper proposes a probabilistic‐based framework to assess the failure probability of the existing shield tunnel owing to undercrossing tunnelling. A novel deterministic model using the two‐phase analysis method is presented to evaluate the longitudinal behaviours of the in‐service shield tunnel. First, the tunnelling‐induced settlement is estimated using the Loganathan and Poulos’ method; second, the longitudinal beam‐spring model (LBSM), which can explicitly consider the circumferential joints, is applied to reflect the performances of the existing shield tunnel. Two well‐documented case histories are selected to validate the effectiveness of the deterministic analysis model. The predictions are also compared with previous analytical methods. Afterward, to improve the computational efficiency, a surrogate model is then established to replace deterministic model and perform the global sensitivity analysis (GSA). A probabilistic analysis is further performed to explore the tunnelling‐induced deformation characteristics of the shield tunnel by means of Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) method. Parametric analyses are further performed to explore the influences of key variables on the failure probabilities of the existing shield tunnel. The results show the proposed deterministic model gives a satisfactory prediction in tunnelling‐induced responses of the existing shield tunnel. The LBSM can reflect the segmental ring and joint deformations more realistically. The uncertainties in the ground elastic modulus, joint rotation stiffness and the joint shearing stiffness dominate the tunnel settlement, joint opening and dislocation, respectively. The failure probability of tunnel settlement is more sensitive to volume loss than that of the joint opening and dislocation. The whole system failure probability is identical to that of the tunnel settlement failure mode. By increasing the coefficient of variation (COV) of random variables, probability density function (PDF) curves for neutral and pessimistic conditions become lower and wider, and the maximum joint opening and dislocation positions corresponding to the peaks of PDF apparently deviate from that of the determinate results. Increasing the two tunnel clearances, the allowable volume loss for opening and dislocation increase linearly, but it has insignificant influence on the tunnel failure mode. However, enlarge the new tunnel diameter leads to rapid decrease in the allowable volume loss for all failure modes.