Effect of Waterhead on Stability of Excavation Face of Slurry Balanced Shield

Abstract

In slurry balanced shield tunneling, how to ensure the safety of construction and to reduce the influence on the environment has attracted wide attention of scholars both at home and abroad. But now it is still in the stage of experience as to the instability mechanism of the slurry shield tunneling excavation and its stability analysis. Based on the large-diameter model tests, the effect of the different waterhead (non-water, 0.9m and 1.1m) on stability of excavation face of slurry balanced shield is investigated, and the stability mechanics is proposed. The results show that: waterhead heights play an important role on excavation face instability features of slurry balanced shield in sandy stratum, Regarding the different waterhead heights, the development mode of the excavation face instability features can be divided into non-water mode, lower-waterhead mode and higher-waterhead mode; soil arching is existed in the process of excavation face instability, the settlement of ground lags behind excavation face failure, the soil arching will block or eliminate the effects of ground settlement; excess pore water pressure need to be considered besides earth pressure and hydrostatic pressure when the supporting force is calculated.