Experimental Study on the Characteristics and Formation Mechanism of Dynamic Filter Cake for Slurry Shield Tunneling

Abstract

The key to guaranteeing excavation face stability in slurry shield tunneling is the formation of an impermeable dynamic filter cake. At the same time, the effect of the cutter head and rotation speed should be taken into account. We studied the characteristics and formation mechanism of the dynamic filter cake using a newly developed experimental apparatus. The experiment results show that the hysteretic infiltration zone appeared in the curves of stepped loading filtration while the cutter head was rotating, and the volume of water filtration increased by 11.2% compared to when the cutter head stopped. The higher the rotation speed was, the lower the conversion rate of the effective stress was. Under the same rotation speed, the formation time of the 6-cutter arm was almost 5 s slower than that of the 5-cutter arm. As the cutter arms and the rotation speed increased, the stratum’s electrical conductivity increased and stabilized at a distance of 20 cm from the cutter head. The filter cake transited from ‘filter cake plus an infiltration zone’ to ‘an infiltration zone without a filter cake’ with the increase of the rotation speed. The thickness of the dynamic filter cake was smaller than that of the static filter cake, the thickness of 10 groups decreased significantly, and the average thickness decreased by 76.15% at 1.0 rpm. The mesoscopic formation process of the dynamic filter cake can be divided into six stages. This study revealed the slurry penetration mechanism and filter cake characteristics present under cyclic damage by the shield cutter head to the filter cake and soil and provided theoretical support on how to maintain the stability of the excavation face during slurry shield tunneling.