The influence of hand hole on the ultimate strength and crack pattern of shield tunnel segment joints by scaled model test

With the shield tunnel going deeper and deeper, the circumferential axial force becomes the governing factor rather than the bending moment. The hand hole acts as a weak point and initial damage in the segment joint especially when the circumferential axial force is extremely high. Despite the wide application of steel fiber or synthetic fiber in the tunneling, limited researches focus on the structural responses of segment joint with macro structural synthetic fiber (MSSF). In this paper, a 1:2 reduced-scale experiment was conducted to study the structural performance of the segment joint with different types of hand holes under ultra-high axial force. Special attention is paid to failure mode and structural performance (bearing capacity, deformation, cracking, and toughness). Moreover, segment joints with MSSF are also tested to evaluate the effects of MSSF on the failure mode and structural performance of the segment joints. The experiment results show that the hand hole becomes the weakest point of the segment joint under ultra-high axial force. A \ /-type crack pattern is always observed before the final failure of the segment joints. Different types and sizes of the hand hole have different degree of influences on the structural behavior of segment joints. The segment joint with MSSF shows higher ultimate bearing capacity and toughness compared to segment joint with common concrete. Besides, the MSSF improves the initial cracking load and anti-spallling resistance of the segment joint.