Settlement characteristics of large-diameter shield excavation below existing subway in close vicinity

A case of Qinghuayuan tunnel excavation below the existing Beijing Subway Line 10 is presented. The new Qinghuayuan tunnel, part of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou High-speed Railway, was excavated by a shield machine with an outer diameter of 12.2 m. The existing subway was excavated by shallow tunnelling method. The project layout, geological conditions, reinforcement measures, operational parameters of shield machine and monitoring results of the project are introduced. During the Qinghuayuan tunnel excavation below the existing subway, total thrust, shield driving speed, cutterhead rotation speed and torque were manually controlled below the average values obtained from the previous monitoring of this project, which could effectively reduce the disturbance of the surrounding soil induced by shield excavation. The Gaussian fitting function can appropriately fit both the ground and the existing subway settlements. The trough width is influenced not only by the excavation overburden depth, but also by the forepoling reinforcement and tail void grouting measures.