Artificial Ground Freezing for Rehabilitation of Tunneling Shield in Subsea Environment

Abstract

Artificial ground freezing method was employed in the rehabilitation project of a subsea tunnel. To ensure safety of the subsea rehabilitation work, special design and research were conducted considering the unfavorable influence of the salt in seawater had on freezing effect, such as thickness thinning and strength loss of the frozen wall. A shell-shaped frozen soil wall was designed to cut off the leakage channel into the shield. Double rows of vertical freezing pipes with limited-depth freezing were settled in front of the cutter head, and auxiliary freezing pipes were settled at the sides of the shield to achieve the design goal. Results of analyzing monitoring data on frozen soil temperature showed that the design was reasonable for shield rehabilitation in subsea stratum.