Analytical Prediction of Ground Movements due to a Nonuniform Deforming Tunnel

An analytical solution is presented to predict ground movement induced by a nonuniformly deforming circular tunnel in a heavy elastic half-plane. Simple expression is proposed to describe the nonuniform soil deformation around the tunnel. The tunnel-deforming components (i.e., ground loss, ovalization, vertical translation) can be determined by the solution-inherent mechanism and by fitting from measured field data. The effects of tunnel-deforming components on the resulting displacement field are discussed. Case studies from various ground conditions were used to check the capacity and applicability of the proposed solution. Although elasticity is a rough representation of the soil behavior, the proposed analytical solution can serve as a simple tool for predicting a reasonable ground settlement profile in the preliminary design of tunnels.