Qu Tongming, Wang Shuying, Liu Pengfei
Abstract:
In order to clarify the disturbance mechanism of the soil around the earth pressure balance (EPB) shield affected by the squeezed and exhausted soil situation of tunneling,discrete element method (DEM) was adopted to establish two groups of two-dimensional numerical models of EPB shield tunneling.The comparisons were carried out to analyze the mesomechanical characteristics of soil at the tunnel face and its surrounding strata during the shield tunneling.This research shows that the shield squeezed the surrounding strata obviously when the soil in the chamber was not exhausted.The vertical displacement developed ovally,while the horizontal displacement developed circularly,all of which decreased with an increase in distance along the horizontal direction.When the soil in the chamber was exhausted,the soil ahead of the cutterhead was not densified obviously,the horizontal displacement was low,and the vertical displacement developed to be irregularly funnel-shaped and higher.When the soil in chamber was not exhausted,the influence of shield tunneling on soil stress ahead of the tunnel face was significant,and the distribution of the average horizontal stress at the tunnel face was uniform.However,with the soil being exhausted,the stress of soil ahead of tunnel face was similar to the initial soil condition,and the distribution of the average horizontal stress at the tunnel face varied greatly due to the soil exhausting.