Functional Catastrophe Analysis of Collapse Mechanism for Shallow Tunnels with Considering Settlement

Limit analysis is a practical and meaningful method to predict the stability of geomechanical properties. This work investigates the pore water effect on new collapse mechanisms and possible collapsing block shapes of shallow tunnels with considering the effects of surface settlement. The analysis is performed within the framework of upper bound theorem. Furthermore, the NL nonlinear failure criterion is used to examine the influence of different factors on the collapsing shape and the minimum supporting pressure in shallow tunnels. Analytical solutions derived by functional catastrophe theory for the two different shape curves which describe the distinct characteristics of falling blocks up and down the water level are obtained by virtual work equations under the variational principle. By considering that the mechanical properties of soil are not affected by the presence of underground water, the strength parameters in NL failure criterion can be taken to be the same under and above the water table. According to the numerical results in this work, the influences on the size of collapsing block different parameters have are presented in the tables and the upper bounds on the loads required to resist collapse are derived and illustrated in the form of supporting forces graphs that account for the variation of the embedded depth and other factors.

Collapsed Shape of Shallow Unlined Tunnels Based on Functional Catastrophe Theory

This paper investigates the collapse mechanisms and possible collapsing block shapes of shallow unlined tunnels under conditions of plane strain. The analysis is performed following the framework from a branch of catastrophe theory, functional catastrophe theory. First, the basic principles of functional catastrophe theory are introduced. Then, an analytical solution for the shape curve of the collapsing block of a shallow unlined tunnel is derived using functional catastrophe theory based on the nonlinear Hoek-Brown failure criterion. The effects of the rock mass parameters of the proposed method on the shape and weight of the collapsing block are examined. Moreover, a critical cover depth expression to classify deep and shallow tunnels is proposed. The analytical results are consistent with those obtained by numerical simulation using the particle flow code, demonstrating the validity of the proposed analytical method. The obtained formulas can be used to predict the height and width of the collapsing block of a shallow unlined tunnel and to provide a direct estimate of the overburden on the tunnel lining. The obtained formulas can be easily used by tunnel engineers and researchers due to their simplicity.