Numerical simulation of cutterhead and soil interaction in slurry shield tunneling

Purpose - This paper aims to provide a 3D finite element (FE) model for dynamic simulation of cutterhead and soil interaction in slurry shield tunneling. Design/methodology/approach - Dynamic numerical simulation of excavation process is realized by combined use of submodeling method and arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALF) approach. The model size reduction, soil mesh refinement and stress state initialization are fulfilled by submodeling. The large soil deformations, failures and flows are handled by ALE approach. Computation time is reduced by parallel domain decomposition with recursive coordinate bisection method. Validation of the proposed approach is achieved by comparing the numerical results with monitored data from the model test for Yangtze River tunneling project. Findings - The proposed approach proves to be an effective technique to simulate the cutterhead and soil interaction dynamically in tunnel excavation. Comparative study on the effect of mesh density indicates the requirement of relative mesh refinement. Exploration of the parallel computing performance points out the best decomposed domain for the simulation. Parametric study on the effect of rotary speed and investigation on soil properties presents the significant factors for torque. Practical implications - The proposed numerical model can help in the development process of reduced-scale model test, as well as design and selection of slurry shield machines. Originality/value - The originality comes from the need to evaluate the excavation performance of slurry shield machine in tunneling project. This contribution provides a 3D numerical approach, which takes into account the stress state in soil and dynamic contact effects between soil and cutterhead. In this work, large deformation in soil is handled. Besides, soil failures and flows are captured.