Assessing a soft twin tunneling numerical model using field data

Using a five-floor building affected by the Yangtze River highway tunnels in Wuhan as the engineering background, we have constructed a free-field model and a coupled model to study the soil, lining, foundations and upper structure, and analyze the rules of movements of building foundation and ground induced by single tunnel and twin tunnel excavation with the Finite Element Analysis method. It is shown that for the coupled model, the longitudinal displacement of each foundation increases slowly when the tunnel face gets close to the foundation section and then increases fast when the tunnel face moves away from the foundation during the single and twin tunneling. For a single tunnel, the surface settlements are overestimated by the free-field and coupled tunnel. This might be crucial in urban areas. Regarding the maximum settlements and the width of the settlement trough, the difference between the free-field model and the coupled model is quite obvious. This comparison with the field measurement value reveals that the coupled model seems to be superior to the free-field model. These results are of instructive significance for design and excavation.