Interaction between multiple tunnels in soft ground.

Abstract

An important aspect of planning for shallow tunnelling under urban areas in soft ground is the determination of likely surface movements and interaction with existing structures. Considerable research has been undertaken of this problem for the case of a single tunnel but little analysis exists for the case of multiple tunnel construction. This paper describes numerical analyses of multiple tunnelling undertaken using the commercial finite element software Plaxis. The aim of the study is to improve prediction of minimum interaction distance between multiple driven tunnels at shallow depths in soft ground.