Failure modes and face instability of shallow tunnels under soft grounds

For shallow tunnels under soft grounds, it is very difficult to gain a complete understanding on all the load-bearing arch effects during excavation, since such tunnels can easily deform or even collapse. Among these effects, the tunnel face stability plays the most important role and has not been understood and handled very well; therefore, the design and construction of such tunnels under soft grounds remain as a challenge. In this work, the different failure models of face instability of the shallow tunnels were established based on the upper-bound theorem of limit analysis for the formation of clayey and sandy soils, respectively, and the analytical equations for determining the limit support force for the face stability were also derived. Furthermore, the influences of various factors on the stability were analyzed and compared. For the sandy soil formation, an equivalent pressure coefficient was proposed for the tunnel faces of bolt reinforcement. Finally, taking the face stability of the shallow tunnels in sandy soils as an example, a complete numerical simulation was conducted to verify the accuracy and effectiveness of the analytical results based on the theoretical models as well as their application conditions.