Vertical Earth Pressure Design for High-Filled Cut-and-Cover Tunnels

Abstract

We used finite element analysis to study the impacts of cross-sectional shape, elasticity modulus, hole width, slope angle, and ratio of trench width to tunnel width on the vertical earth pressure on top of cut-and-cover tunnels. The study results show that the effect of the tunnel width coefficient nonlinearly increases with increase in the fill height. The effect of the elasticity modulus coefficient and the coupled effect of slope angle and the ratio of trench width to cut-and-cover tunnel width decreases nonlinearly. We also analyzed two calculation cases for high-filled railway cut-and-cover tunnels and compared the calculated results with those obtained by numerical simulation.