Ground motion duration effect on responses of hydraulic shallow-buried tunnel under SV-waves excitations

Although intensive research of the influence of ground motion duration on structural cumulative damage has been carried out, the influence of dynamic responses in underground tunnels remains a heated debate. This study attempts to highlight the importance of the ground motion duration effect on hydraulic tunnels subjected to deep-focus earthquakes. In the study, a set of 18 recorded accelerograms with a wide-range of durations were employed. A spectrally equivalent method serves to distinguish the effect of duration from other ground motion features, and then the seismic input model was simulated using SV-wave excitation based on a viscous-spring boundary, which was verified by the time-domain waves analysis method. The nonlinear analysis results demonstrate that the risk of collapse of the hydraulic tunnel is higher under long-duration ground motion than that of short-duration ground motion of the same seismic intensity. In a low intensity earthquake, the ground motion duration has little effect on the damage energy consumption of a hydraulic tunnel lining, but in a high intensity earthquake, dissipation of the damage energy and damage index of concrete shows a nonlinear growth trend accompanied by the increase of ground motion duration, which has a great influence on the deformation and stress of hydraulic tunnels, and correlation analysis shows that the correlation coefficient is greater than 0.8. Therefore, the duration of ground motion should be taken into consideration except for its intensity and frequency content in the design of hydraulic tunnel, and evaluation of seismic risk.

Dynamic Response of Shallow-Buried Tunnels Traversing High Loess Slopes

Considering the existence of numerous shallow-buried tunnels traversing high slopes in the loess area in western China and the fact of high seismic intensity there,we investigate the dynamic response rules of a shallow-buried loess tunnel and its slope under the action of seismic waves with different intensities.Through large-scale shaking table model tests,we successfully analyze the characteristics and process of the destabilization of tunnels and slopes,and propose valuable suggestions regarding the reinforcement parts of a tunnel for reducing seismic damage.The results show that the main seismic damage on a slope include the failure of the sliding surface between the top and foot and the stripping of the soil around the tunnel entrance,while the damage on a tunnel is mainly manifested as the seismic-induced subsidence at the portal section and the cracking deformation at the joint areas.Finally,we propose that the“staggered peak distribution”phenomenon of the maximum acceleration values at the vault and inverted arch area can be considered as a criterion indicating that the tunnel enters into the threshold of dynamic failure.

Blast responses of shallow-buried prefabricated modular concrete tunnels reinforced by BFRP-steel bars

This paper reports the anti-blast performance of shallow-buried prefabricated modular tunnel reinforced by basalt fiber-reinforced polymer(BFRP)-steel bars.Three concrete arch members with steel bars and three concrete arch members with BFRP-steel bars were fabricated,with the other arch parameters kept constant.The three identical arches were assembled into an integral structure and then buried in soil for field anti-blast experiments.Through the experiment,the pressure on the vault,the displacement and acceleration of the vault,the strain in the reinforcement bars and the macroscopic damage of the arches under the blast load were determined.To evaluate the damage of the arch tunnel,a residual load-bearing capacity test was conducted on the arch members after the explosion experiment.The experimental results showed that the BFRP-steel bars reinforced concrete arch exhibited a higher load-bearing capacity and more safety redundancy than the steel bars reinforced concrete arch,and that the BFRP-steel bars could inhibit the occurrence of concrete cracks to a certain extent.A comparison between the arches assembled at different positions showed that the prefabricated modular tun-nel can be simplified directly as a two-dimensional arch structure under the blast load for analysis and calculation.