Contribution to static analysis of load-bearing concrete tunnel lining built by shield-driven technology

Load-bearing concrete tunnel linings for shield-driven tunnels have been used very often in the last decade. Different forms, means of assembly and coupling of the concrete tunnel lining elements have been developed; and current software products in the field of structural analysis provide new possibilities for more precise modeling and computation. In this paper, a simplified comparative static computation for an example of an underground metro concrete tunnel lining is shown. For the same dimensions of the tunnel cross-section and the same earth environment model, different means of assembly and coupling were used. A comparison of the forces and deformations achieved by using different plain ring (2D) and spatial (3D) computing models show that traditional plain ring models give more accurate results than spatial (3D) models.