Exploring the feasibility of prestressed anchor cables as an alternative to temporary support in the excavation of super-large-span tunnel

Excavating super-large-span tunnels in soft rock masses presents significant challenges.To ensure safety,the sequential excavation method is commonly adopted.It utilizes internal temporary supports to spatially partition the tunnel face and divide the excavation into multiple stages.However,these internal supports generally impose spatial constraints,limiting the use of large-scale excavation equipment and reducing construction efficiency.To address this constraint,this study adopts the“Shed-frame”principle to explore the feasibility of an innovative support system,which aims to replace internal supports with prestressed anchor cables and thus provide a more spacious working space with fewer internal obstructions.To evaluate its effectiveness,a field case involving the excavation of a 24-m span tunnel in soft rock is presented,and an analysis of extensive field data is conducted to study the deformation characteristics of the surrounding rock and the mechanical behavior of the support system.The results revealed that prestressed anchor cables integrated the initial support with the shed,creating an effective“shed-frame”system,which successively maintained tunnel deformation and frame stress levels within safe regulatory bounds.Moreover,the prestressed anchor cables bolstered the surrounding rock effectively and reduced the excavation-induced disturbance zone significantly.In summary,the proposed support system balances construction efficiency and safety.These field experiences may offer valuable insights into the popularization and further development of prestressed anchor cable support systems.

Negative Poisson’s ratio cable compensation support for 32 m super-large-span highway tunnel:A case study

Although super-large-span tunnels ensure convenient transportation,they face many support challenges.The lack of normative construction guidance and the limited number of reference engineering cases pose a significant challenge to the stability control of superlarge-span tunnels.Based on the geological conditions of a super-large-span tunnel(span=32.17 m)at the bifurcation section of the Shenzhen interchange,this study determined support parameters via theoretical calculation,numerical simulation,and engineering analogy.The support effects of negative Poisson’s ratio(NPR)anchor cables and ordinary anchor cables on super-long-span tunnels were simulated and studied.Further,based on FLAC3D simulations,the surrounding rock stress field of NPR anchor cables was analyzed under different prestressing conditions,and the mechanism of a long-short combination,high-prestress compensation NPR anchor cable support was revealed.On the basis of numerical simulations,to our knowledge,the three-dimensional(3D)geomechanical model test of the NPR anchor cable and ordinary anchor cable support for super-large-span tunnel excavation is conducted for the first time,revealing the stress evolution law of super-large-span tunnels,deformation and failure characteristics of the surrounding rock,and the changing trend of the anchor cable’s axial force,and verifies that NPR anchor cables with high preloads are suitable for super-large-span tunnel support and have advantages over ordinary anchor cables.This study can provide a reliable theoretical reference for the support design and stability control of the surrounding rock of similar shallow-buried super-large-span tunnels.

Model test of negative Poisson’s ratio cable for supporting super-largespan tunnel using excavation compensation method

In recent years,there is a scenario in urban tunnel constructions to build super-large-span tunnels for traffic diversion and route optimization purposes.However,the increased size makes tunnel support more difficult.Unfortunately,there are few studies on the failure and support mechanism of the surrounding rocks in the excavation of supported tunnel,while most model tests of super-large-span tunnels focus on the failure characteristics of surrounding rocks in tunnel excavation without supports.Based on excavation compensation method(ECM),model tests of a super-large-span tunnel excavation by different anchor cable support methods in the initial support stage were carried out.The results indicate that during excavation of super-large-span tunnel,the stress and displacement of the shallow surrounding rocks decrease,following a step-shape pattern,and the tunnel failure is mainly concentrated on the vault and spandrel areas.Compared with conventional anchor cable supports,the NPR(negative Poisson’s ratio)anchor cable support is more suitable for the initial support stage of the super-large-span tunnels.The tunnel support theory,model test materials,methods,and the results obtained in this study could provide references for study of similar super-large-span tunnels。