Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110

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Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology

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Evaluation of tunnel face stability by transparent soil models

Mahmoud Ahmed a, Magued Iskander b,
a
New York State Department of Transportation, Route 9A Project/Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, 115 Broadway, RM 1701, New York, NY 10006, United States
b
Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Six Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Accurate estimation of tunnel face support pressure is necessary for economical and safe shield tunneling
Received 6 July 2010 in cohesionless soils. This paper presents measurements of tunnel face support pressure and associated
Received in revised form 12 July 2011 soil movements obtained using a transparent soil model that simulates shield tunneling in medium dense
Accepted 1 August 2011
saturated sand. The use of a transparent soil surrogate permits measuring the internal soil deformations
Available online 29 September 2011
within the model soil. Soil deformations associated with various face support pressures are presented for
4 cover-to-diameter (C/D) ratios. Failure is found to be sudden with sand owing into the tunnel leading
Keywords:
to a prismatic wedge in front of the tunnel face and a vertical chimney of soil above. A minimum support
Tunnel
Ground movements
pressure was achieved with support pressures as low as 10 1% of the effective vertical stress at the tun-
Face stability nel axis. The stability of the tunnel face was related to the coefcient of active earth pressure with C/D
Failure mechanisms ratio having a small effect on the magnitude of required pressure at collapse.
Transparent soil 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Digital Image Correlation (DIC) cross-
correlation
Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV)

1. Introduction Accurate prediction of ground movements associated with dif-

Tunneling in soft ground is most likely to be carried by either
slurry/hydro shield (SS/HS) or earth pressure balance (EPB) tunnel
boring machines (TBM). Both TBMs work on the principle that
ground deformations can be greatly reduced if the tunnel face is
excavated while being supported. Thus, if the applied pressure
can maintain support to the tunnel face, ground displacements
can be minimized.
The SS/HS tunneling method balances existing earth and hydro-
static pressures by applying a pressurized slurry consisting of
water, bentonite, and/or polymer conditioners at the tunnel face
(Anagnostou and Kovri, 1994). The slurry also prevents the inl-
tration of groundwater into the tunnel. The EPB method uses the
excavated soil to balance the soil and water loads to prevent
ground failure at the tunnel face (Clough and Leca, 1993). In both
mechanisms an internal pressure is generated to support the cut-
ting face against the existing overburden and hydrostatic pres-
sures. The popularity of pressurized shields has been increased
by the effective use of additives and other soil conditioning meth-
ods such as foams and polymers which increase the range of soils
where SS/HS/EPB methods can be employed (Quebaud et al., 1998;
Vinaia et al., 2008).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 718 260 3016; fax: +1 718 260 3433.
E-mail addresses: mmahmoud@dot.state.ny.us (M. Ahmed), iskander@poly.edu
(M. Iskander).
fering face pressures in soft ground is essential for efcient con-
struction and protection of nearby structures and utilities from
damage. Kirsch (2010) compiled a large number of available theo-
retical and experimentally derived approaches to estimate the re-
quired face support pressure. These solution ranged by one order
of magnitude. The face support pressure must stabilize the soil at
the front. A relatively low face pressures run the risk of excessive
ground deformations (Peck, 1969); therefore it is necessary to
know the minimum face pressures that result in acceptable ground
movement. In addition to face collapse (active failure) the face sup-
port pressure must also prevent blow-out (passive failure) of the
soil mass near the tunnel face.
Analytical methods and experimental data to estimate the tun-
nel face support pressure are in short supply, particularly for tun-
nels in saturated sand. Meguid et al. (2008) presented a review of
tunnel physical modeling and approaches used to record soil defor-
mation that have been developed and used in soft ground tunnel-
ing research. Among the techniques discussed in this study is rigid
tube with exible face method where a tunnel cavity was sup-
ported by either a Latex membrane (e.g. Chambon et al., 1991;
Sterpi et al., 1996; Yoo and Shin, 2003) or a rubber membrane
(e.g. Hagiwara et al., 1999; Wu and Lee, 2003; Lee et al., 2006). A
similar membrane technique was adopted in this study with trans-
parent soil surrogate. The approach applied the recently developed
transparent soil technology and associated image processing tech-
niques (Iskander, 2010) to investigate the relationship between

0886-7798/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tust.2011.08.001
102 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
Fig. 1. Important parameters in tunneling.
tunnel geometry, face support pressure, and ground deformation. A
tunnel is pre-placed in a transparent soil model, which represents
saturated sand. Tunnel face support is simulated using an internal
pressure (rT) applied inside the tunnel (Fig. 1). Tests are conducted
by reducing the tunnel pressure rT in stages until collapse of the
soil occurs. Because the model is transparent, it can be sliced using
a laser light sheet, along the tunnel axis. Images of the soil along
the tunnel axis, illuminated by a laser light sheet, were captured
after each decrement of rT reduction and used to obtain corre-
sponding 2D deformation elds. Soil deformations perpendicular
to the tunnel axis are available in Ahmed and Iskander (2011).
These model tests are not intended to precisely reproduce a
scaled real tunnel during construction with details of the methods
of excavation support. Nevertheless, this simplied approach is
capable of revealing patterns of face collapse and its relation to
support pressure and tunnel geometry. In particular the methodol-
ogy illustrates the way in which soil around a circular cavity,
resembling a tunnel in saturated sand, deforms when the support
pressure within the cavity is reduced. A similar procedure was ini-
tially adopted by Ward and Pender (1981) and has been success-
fully used by Sterpi et al. (1996) and Yoo and Shin (2003) to
investigate tunnel face stability.
2. Analytical methods to analyze stability of tunnel face
Numerical modeling has been used extensively to investigate
tunnel face stability (Leca et al., 2000). These methods allow for
simulating a wide range of scenarios. However, in this study, an at-
tempt is made to correlate the experimental results against closed
form analytical solutions due to the simplicity of the comparison.
A number of authors have described external failure mecha-
nisms of the tunnel face (i.e. failure not related to linings or tunnel
structural members) and derived formulae to calculate the mini-
mum required support pressure by analytical or empirical means.
In sands, Atkinson and Potts (1977) derived lower bound solu-
tions for the minimal support pressure of an unlined cavity in a
dry cohesionless material for two different cases. The rst case
(Eq. (1)) for tunnels in a weightless soil (c  0) and surface load
rS is given by:
 1kp
2C
rT rS 1
D 2
where kp is Rankines coefcient of passive earth pressure. The sec-
ond case (Eq. (2)) is for tunnels in soils having unit weight, c > 0 and
no surface loading is applied, rS = 0.
cDkp
rT 2
kp  1
Atkinson and Potts (1977) also developed upper bound solution
by considering kinematically admissible failure mechanisms. The
unsafe tunnel support pressure or upper bound was found to be
independent of C/D and given by;
 
cD 1 p
rT u 3
4 cos u tan u 2
Leca and Dormieux (1990) expanded Davis et al. (1980) formu-
lation to dry MohrCoulomb (c, u) materials, as follows:
rT cDNd rS NS 4
where Nd and NS are nondimensional parameters that represent the
effect of soil weight and surcharge loading, respectively, similar to
bearing capacity factors. Leca and Dormieux presented two sets of
graphs to estimate Nd and NS corresponding to blow out and col-
lapse. Using these graphs the required support pressures can be
calculated.
Anagnostou and Kovari (1996) indicated that at limit equilib-
rium state, the required support pressure depends on several fac-
tors including the tunnel diameter D, the overburden C, the
piezomteric head in the chamber, water table level, shear strength
parameters (u and c), the dry unit weight for soil above water table
and submerged unit weight for submerged soil. They further devel-
oped a solution based on dimensional analysis as follows:
rT F 0 c0 D  F 1 c F 2 c0 Dh  F 3 cDh=D 5
where F1 to F3 are dimensionless coefcients, c0 is the submerged
unit weight and Dh is the difference between the original piezomet-
ric head at the tunnel invert level and the chamber.
Further models based on limit equilibrium method have been
proposed by Broere (1998) and based on kinematical method of
limit analysis by Mollon et al. (2009).
3. Laboratory investigations to analyze stability of tunnel face
Tunnel face stability has been investigated by several authors
using the centrifuge. During centrifuge tests, face support is usu-
ally achieved by either a piston or impermeable membrane sup-
ported by air or uid pressure. For the piston method, the
mechanical support is slowly removed to simulate a face collapse.
This method does not conveniently provide information about the
required support pressure. Nevertheless, it gives valuable informa-
tion about failure shape and collapse mechanism. The membrane
method usually provides information about both: failure shape
and the required support pressure, which can be found by slowly
reducing the support pressure behind the membrane and observ-
ing deformations. However, its not possible to examine the effect
of mixing additives (slurry) on the excavated material because the
membrane simulating the tunnel face must be impermeable.
Chambon and Cort (1994) conducted a series of centrifuge
experiments for tunnels embedded in homogeneous dry sand.
They used model tunnel sealed by membrane and gradually re-
duced the support pressure starting from active earth pressure
down to collapse. Hence their initial support pressure at the tunnel
centerline computed according to Rankines formula is:
 
D p u
1 rT c C tan2  6
4 2
Their investigation focused on the effect of C/D ratio and soil
density on the minimum support pressure and failure mechanisms.
They showed that for the values of C/D (0.54) and unit weight
(15.3 and 16.1 kN/m3) investigated both, soil density and C/D had
2 little effect on the support pressure at failure, perhaps due to the
small range of density investigated.
 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
Atkinson and Potts (1977) reported a number of model tests
performed on dense sand in a centrifuge. Tests were carried with
and without surcharge load (rS), which was applied by uid pres-
sure contained within exible rubber membrane applied at the
sand surface. Tunnels were constructed with the tunnel pressure
approximately equal to the vertical stress in the soil at the level
of the tunnel axis; thus their initial support pressure was:
 
D
rT c C rS
2
During the tests the tunnel pressure was reduced in decrements
until the tunnel collapsed. Their results indicated that for the case
where rS > 0, the minimum support pressure was found to be well
represented by Eq. (3). For rS = 0 case the observed minimum sup-
port pressure exceeded the lower bound solution given by Eq. (2).
Similar experiments have also been conducted on cohesionless
material by Eisenstein and Ezzeldine (1994), Hisatake et al. (1995)
and Takano et al. (2006).
4. Experimental methodology
4.1. Model test setup
Transparent silicas suitable for simulating the geotechnical
properties of a wide range of soils have been developed (Sadek
et al., 2002). One of the developed materials called SG1 is a partic-
ulate material resembling angular white sand, 0.51.5 mm in size
was utilized. Complete saturation of the particles is required in or-
der to eliminate the refractive index mismatch between silica gel
and air. In order to achieve transparency SG1 is saturated with a
matched refractive index uid. The refractive index, viscosity,
and density of the pore uid at room temperature (24 C) were
1.447, 5.0 cP, and 800 kg/m3, respectively. SG1 has similar stress-
strain characteristics to sand (Fig. 2). Detailed properties of SG1
and the pore uid are available in Iskander et al. (2002). For the
experiments described in this paper, the average dry and saturated
unit weights were 7 and 8.53 kN/m3, respectively. The angle of fric-
tion u of the MohrCoulomb failure envelopes was 36 obtained
by direct shear tests performed on SG1 samples at 60% relative
density according to ASTM test method D3080. The normal stress
in theses tests ranged between 40 and 70 kPa.
A Plexiglas model container (Fig. 3) 30.48  25.4  20.32
(width  depth  height in cm) was used to contain the transpar-
ent soil. The dimensions of the model have been chosen in such
a way, that the inuence of the boundaries was minimized. The
tunnel is modeled by a PVC tube, 2.54 cm in diameter, preinstalled
inside the model at a depth of 12.7 cm. This allows testing tunnels
with cover to diameter ratio (C/D) from 1 to 4.5. A Latex membrane
Fig. 2. Stressstrain characteristics of SG1.
103
7
Fig. 3. Transparent soil tunnel model.
(0.3 mm thick) of negligible strength was attached to the end of the
tube to represent the tunnel face. The membrane was made of a
sheet of Latex that was cut and glued to the PVC tube to fasten
it. Additionally, an O-ring was used as a backup to prevent leakage.
The membrane front was left slack to prevent mechanical inuence
on the displacement of the face. The membrane method might be
problematic with respect to the failure shape at low stress values,
because of the uncontrolled shape of the deformed membrane.
However, in these tests, the membrane was supported by uid
pressure that is believed to provide a uniform pressure distribution
at the face and consequently controlled the shape of deformation.
The mineral oil used as pore uid is incompatible with Latex,
and quickly deteriorates thin membranes. A 0.3 mm thick mem-
brane (Em = 1.3 MPa) was used to allow enough time for testing.
The effect of membrane stiffness (rm) was determined by measur-
ing the pressure that must be applied inside the membrane to
cause it to expand laterally, when no soil is present. A value of
rm = 4.8 kPa was obtained for the membrane used in this study
when it exes out a distance of 2.5 mm, with no soil surrounding
it. The initial pressure employed is 69 kPa, and reduced to
0.7 kPa, which corresponds to the membrane exing in by
2.5 mm. This indicates that the membrane may have an effect on
the post failure support pressure, but its effect is less than 10%
prior to failure.
Transparent soil was then placed at approximately 20 mm lifts.
The placement technique adopted in this study provided an in-
place uniform relative density of approximately 60% with a unit
weight 8.53 kN/m3. The tube (tunnel) was then lled with water
under pressure to simulate the tunnel support pressure, rT. In real-
ity, such a support can be achieved by use of compressed air, ben-
tonite slurry or earth pressure balance (EPB) TBMs. In this study, rT
is believed to be uniform over the tunnel face. Membrane support
pressure was measured by a tube connected to a pressure port and
a digital monitor with precision in the order of 0.01 Pa.
For application of surcharge or surface pressure, rS, the Plexi-
glas model container was placed between two identical metal
plates connected by four threaded rods (Fig. 4). A rubber tire with
internal pressure rS was placed on top of the transparent soil.
104 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
Fig. 4. Application of surface loading.
In addition to the tunnel container, the set up also included a
Cohu 2622 black & white CCD camera, 35 mW Melles Griot laser
light source, a line generator lens, a test table, and a PC for image
processing (Fig. 5). The camera has a resolution of 640  480 pixels
and controlled by the PC through a Matrox Meteor 2/4 frame grab-
ber. A macro-zoom lens with a variable focus length from 18 to
108 mm was mounted on the CCD camera.
4.2. Displacement eld measurement using Digital Image Correlation
The interaction between laser light and transparent soils pro-
duces a distinctive speckle pattern. This speckle pattern manifests
the interaction between the transparent soil matrix, impurities, en-
trapped air, and the laser. Small particle movement will result in
change in the speckle distribution in the plane of measurement.
If the deformation is small, the contrast distribution resulting from
the speckle effect will follow the particle movement. Images cap-
tured before and after deformation are analyzed using the cross-
correlation function (DIC) which is a classic pattern recognition
technique based on using correlation function to locate the best
matching position of two images and thus predicting movements.
Sadek et al. (2003) studied the accuracy of DIC application in trans-
parent soil models. The results indicate that the calculated defor-
mation using the developed system has an error on the order of
0.1 pixel, which is equivalent to a 0.01 mm for optical settings used
in this study.
For displacements measurement using DIC, the camera images
are divided into rectangular regions called interrogation areas or
interrogation windows (Fig. 6). For each of these interrogation win-
Fig. 5. Test setup.
dows the image before and after each decrement of tunnel pres-
sure are correlated to produce an average particle displacement
vector. Doing this for all interrogation regions produce a vector
map of average particle displacements. The position of the peak
in the correlation plane corresponds directly to the average particle
displacement within the interrogation area investigated. The vec-
tor from the center of the region to the peaks of cross-correlation
function gives the magnitude and direction of the relative move-
ment between two images. An advanced form of DIC which em-
ploys window shifting and window sizing, called Adaptive Cross
Correlation (ACC), has been used (Liu and Iskander, 2004). ACC is
implemented in Flow Manager Software (Dantec, 2001), which is
the software used in this research.
4.3. Modeling technique
Active collapse of the tunnel is triggered by application of sur-
charge, rS, and self-weight, with the tunnel face pressure rT pro-
viding resistance against failure. Under passive conditions, these
roles are reversed, and blow-out of the soil mass in front of the tun-
nel face is caused by the tunnel pressure with resistance being pro-
vided by the surcharge and self-weight. In this study, only the
active collapse of the tunnel face is considered in the analysis; be-
cause the blow-out of the soil in front of the tunnel face is less
likely, thus of less practical interest.
At the beginning of the experiment, the vertical effective stress
acting on the tunnel was negligible. This assumption is found to be
reasonable because of the unit weight of the transparent soil (Sa-
dek et al., 2002) and the size of the model which yields negligible
magnitude for the quantity c(C + D/2) = 0.50.9 kN/m2. When the
surcharge, rS = 69 kPa, is applied the vertical effective stress in-
creases and is assumed to be equal to rS. The lateral earth pressure
follows the increase in vertical effective stress, which would cause
the tunnel face to deform into the tunnel, unless the internal tun-
nel pressure, rT, was increased to balance the increased stresses
from surface pressure. A conservative initial internal tunnel pres-
sure, rT = rS was employed in all experiments, such that rT and
rS were increased simultaneously.
To illustrate that the methods employed in this study were suc-
cessful in obtaining an initial zero face displacement condition,
vectors of resultant ground movement due to application of sur-
face pressure, rS, and tunnel pressure, rT, are shown in Fig. 7 for
one test. The displacement vectors are generated by DIC analysis
of images captured before and after application of tunnel and sur-
face pressures. As seen by the vectors in Fig. 7, only vertical ground
movements were encountered due to settlement of the soil prole
as a result to application of a surcharge pressure. No horizontal
movement occurred near the tunnel face.
Tests were conducted by reducing the tunnel pressure rT in
stages until collapse occurred. After each decrement of tunnel
pressure (0.7 kPa), the model was sliced optically using laser light
sheet to illuminate the plane of measurements inside the model
and an image was taken by the CDD camera. Later, these images
were analyzed using Digital Image Correlation to obtain corre-
sponding deformation and strain elds.
5. Analysis of test results
5.1. Required support pressure
Plots of face support pressure against face displacements for
four tests with C/D ratios ranging from 1.5 to 4.5 are presented
in Fig. 8, where the tunnel support pressure, rT, normalized by
the vertical effective stress, rV, at the tunnel axis is plotted against
tunnel face displacement, dh, measured at the center of the face,
 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
Fig. 6. Flow chart for Digital Image Correlation algorithm.
Fig. 7. Vectors of resultant ground movement due to simultaneous application rS
and rT.
normalized by tunnel diameter, D. The shape of the curves is sim-
ilar throughout the range of C/D values examined. At the beginning
(Point O) rT/rV = 1, where rV (rS in this study) is the theoretical
vertical pressure at the tunnel center line where the measurement
was taken. As rT is reduced, no movement is observed at the face
down to pressures that are very low compared to initial support
pressure. For our tests, a distinctive pressure (at Point A) represent
105
the start of collapse and corresponds to rT/rV = 17 1%. Chambon
and Cort (1994) referred to pressure triggering collapse in centri-
fuge experiments on ve tunnels in dry sand as the characteristic
failure pressure, pc. They stated that the characteristic pressure at
the start of collapse, pc, are on the order of 20 kPa for a Cavity 5 m
in Diameter and sufciently deep (C/D > 1). Based on Chambon
and Cort test conditions (c = 15.316.1 kN/m3, pc = 20.1
20.2 kPa, C/D = 12) rT/rV ranges between 11% for C/D = 2 and
18% for C/D = 1. Our tests and Chambon and Cort tests are in sur-
prisingly close range for tunnel support pressure triggering the col-
lapse stage. Further reduction of support pressure beyond Point A
down to Point B, results in small face displacements, which are
approximately proportional to the reduction in rT. At Point B, the
cumulative normalized displacements of the tunnel face range
from 1% to 1.1% (Fig. 8). Again, this range compares favorably with
the 0.7% reported by Chambon and Cort (1994) for dry sand.
Displacement vectors at Point B are shown in Fig. 9 for C/D ra-
tios 1.54.5. The gure visualizes the extension of ground move-
ment ahead of the face and above the crown. It appears that
ground movement extends approximately 1D in front of the tunnel
face. Movements are largest near the face but propagate upward to
form a narrow chimney. The effect of these movements at the sur-
face is varied based on C/D ratio, with shallow tunnels (C/D < 3)
generating more surface disruption, as expected. This behavior is
recognized again in the contour plots of resultant ground move-
106 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110

Fig. 8. Face support pressure and corresponding face displacements (rV = rS).

Fig. 9. Displacement vectors at Point B.

ment normalized by tunnel diameter (Fig. 10) for four different C/D ment did not reach the ground surface. In the case of tunnels with
ratios, at Point B. For deeper tunnels (C/D > 4), peak ground defor- C/D < 3, ground movements associated with initial instability of the
mation was localized near the tunnel face, and peak ground move- tunnel face extended to the ground surface. Manifestations of
 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110 107

Fig. 10. Contour plots of resultant ground movement at Point B.

ground movement at the surface were clearly observed in shallow-

est tunnels (C/D = 1.5). Additionally, the extension of ground move-
ment ahead of the face increases with C/D ratio as seen in Fig. 10.
Knowledge of when Point B or local tunnel face failure occurs is
not only important to ensure face stability but also to control and
limit ground deformations associated with the tunneling. It ap-
pears that a small face support pressure approximately 911% of
the vertical effective stress, applied to the tunnel face is sufcient
to provide stable conditions against the action of earth pressure at
the face (Fig. 8), which falls between the average of the data pub-
lished by Oblozinsky and Kuwano (2006) and Chambon and Cort
(1994) (Fig. 11). For our test conditions, the required rT/rV at Point
B represents 50% of lateral earth pressure coefcient (ka = 0.26 cal-
culated by Rankine method).
Fig. 11. Comparison between critical support pressure (rTC) measured in transpar-
ent soil and centrifugal models.
5.2. Comparison with theoretical predictions

Atkinson and Potts (1977) solution for tunnels in a weightless

Table 1
soil (c  0) and surface load rS (Eq. (1)) is not widely used. Also Theoretical support pressures from Atkinson and Potts (1977) solution for weightless
the term weightless soil does not describe SG1 fairly knowing that soil.
its unit weight is smaller than natural sands by approximately 40%.
C/D Minimum support pressure, rTmin (kPa)
Nevertheless, a comparison with that solution is presented in Ta-
ble 1 for a range of friction angles. Our results compare best to / = 36 / = 30 / = 28 / = 26

the case of C/D = 1.5 and / = 28, which is lower than the measured 1.5 1.3 4.3 6.9 7.9
angle of friction of SG1. This could have resulted from (1) errors in 2.5 0.4 2 3.5 4.2
3.5 0.2 1.1 2.2 2.7
the theoretical model, (2) experimental error, (3) presence of arch-
4.5 0.1 0.7 1.5 1.9
ing at deeper tunnels, or (4) failure to obey all scaling laws.
108 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
5.3. Failure mechanisms
After Point B was reached (Fig. 8), further decrease of the sup-
porting pressure led to sudden collapse (Point F) as transparent soil
tended to slide into the tunnel and the failure envelope propagated
progressively upward.
Contour plots for resultant ground movements associated with
Point F (failure) are shown in Fig. 12 for four different C/D ratios.
The movements observed at failure are substantially larger than
those observed at Point B (Fig. 10). Ground movements at the tun-
nel level corresponding to failure stage transmitted to the surface
with shallower tunnels transmitting more movements than deeper
ones. The observed movements compare well with the zone of
ground movement reported by Chambon and Cort (1994) using
a centrifuge in dry sand, where the zone of post-instability ground
movements formed a chimney in front of the tunnel face that
reached the ground surface. The dashed lines in Fig. 12 indicate
the failed zones at the moment of collapse, corresponding to the
contour of ground displacement equal to the tunnel face displace-
ment at the center line, at Point F. The failed zone is relatively nar-
row and reaches approximately 1D above the tunnel crown, when
arching of the soil prevented further deformation. The failed soil
mass outcropped at the ground surface for the C/D = 1.5 case. How-
ever, the chimney shape failure did not outcrop at the ground sur-
face for tests with C/D > 2. The observed failure zone is consistent
with the chimney and wedge combination failure mechanisms
Fig. 12. Contour plots of resultant ground movements at Point F.
proposed by Horn (1961), Chambon and Cort (1994), Leca and
Dormieux (1990) and Mollon et al. (2009) (Fig. 13).
6. Relationship between tunnel support pressure and ground
deformation
The observed behavior can be divided into three stages in rela-
tion to lateral earth pressure coefcient, ka, as follows:
1. Face Deformation (1 > rT/rV > 0.8ka): Face deformation is dened
by displacement, dh, measured at the center of the face, normal-
ized by tunnel diameter, D. Although support pressure is
reduced from its original value no movement was observed at
the face till rT/rV = 0.17 .01 was reached. During the face
deformation stage, very small face deformations were observed
(less than 0.1% of tunnel diameter). The pressure associated
with triggering the face movement at the end of this stage rep-
resents the start of collapse.
2. Face Slip Stage: (0.8ka > rT/rV > 0.5ka): This stage represents
small deformations leading to local face failure. Face displace-
ment at this stage ranged between 0.1% and 1% of tunnel diam-
eter. In our experiments local failure occurred when rT/
rS = 10 1%, which we average conservatively as 0.1. Our tests
results compare favorably to centrifuge model tests by Cham-
bon and Cort (1994) and Oblozinsky and Kuwano (2006)
(Fig. 11) and falls between the upper bound and lower bound
 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
Cover C
Chimney
D
Prismatic
wedge
Diameter D
Failure mechanism by Horn (1961)
s s
C
T
D D
Multi-block failure mechanism by Mollon et.al., (2009)
Fig. 13. Comparison between theoretical failure mechanisms and failure observed in transparent soil.
solutions proposed by Leca and Dormieux (1990). This nding
also conrms Chambon and Cort (1994) and Leca and Dormi-
eux (1990) conclusion that the upper bound solutions are closer
to the actual pressures at failure than the lower bound values,
and can provide a reasonable estimate of critical tunnel face
pressures (rTC). Theoretically, the upper-bound theorem (kine-
matical approach) provides a critical (unsafe) estimate of the
tunnel support pressure required to maintain stability.
Collapse was triggered, by surface loading unlike Chambon
and Cort (1994) experiments and the assumptions employed
in theoretical solutions proposed by Anagnostou and Kovari
(1996) and Leca and Dormieux (1990). This fact does not change
signicantly the analysis of the results due to several reasons:
First, because the comparison was based on the state of stress
represented by the ratio of the support pressure to the vertical
effective stress at the tunnel axis (rT/rV). Second, SG1 has a sim-
ilar stress-strain behavior to sand. Finally, face collapse resulted
from passive failure due to insufcient support pressure at the
face. Therefore, estimating the minimum required support pres-
sure based on effective stress, is reasonable.
The value of rTC could have been inuenced by the boundary
conditions of the small scale experiment, but the consistency of
the results with previous studies is re-assuring. In any case, the
results point to the importance of holding or increasing the face
pressure above the value of rT/rV > 0.1 in order to stabilize the
face and prevent progression of ground failure.
3. Failure Stage (rT/rV < 0.5ka): This stage represents total failure.
Face collapsed when transparent soil slide into the tunnel and
large displacements occurred without decreasing the support
pressure. Collapse occurs suddenly, with the soil owing into
the tunnel, which leads to a collapse chimney developing in
front of the tunnel face. It would be difcult to control failure
once collapse begins.
7. Limits of the study
Although it has been shown that tunneling process can be well
modeled by transparent soils, the use of the above-described pro-
cedure has some limitations as follows:
109
1 Chimney
C/D
0
Wedge
-1 0 1 2 3
Normalized distance from tunnel face (y/D)
Failure observed in transparent soil models
2
C
T
Two-block failure mechanism by Leca and Dormieux (1990)
 Transparent soil used in these model tests has a smaller unit
weight than natural soils, but has a similar stress-strain behavior.
The discrepancy in unit weight may affect the scaling of stress
based problems such as scaling of liner deformations or soil rein-
forcement, to natural soils. For deformational problems such as
the ones presented here, it is believed that the role of geometry
is more signicant than that of self-weight, but small differences
in failure geometry may occur due to the discrepancy in unit
weight. At any rate a surcharge has been used in lieu of the self
weight to minimize the effect of the small unit weight.
 Model tests performed in this study did not investigate the
effect of gravity and assumed it to be minimal. Therefore, a sur-
face loading (69 kPa) was introduced, by means of air pressure
contained inside a rubber tire, in order to trigger instability
and to create a situation where a measurable pressure is needed
for stabilizing the face. Such approach is necessary for two rea-
sons: First, because the unit weight of silica gel is smaller than
natural sands by approximately 40%. Second, the small dimen-
sion of the model yields negligible magnitude for the quantity
of the gravitational force (i.e., cH = 0.91 kPa).
 Although the centrifuge is better at scaling the parameters
involved in tunneling the method presented in this paper is less
costly, and permits visualizing internal deformations without
the use of sensors that may affect the measured deformations.
The technique can be employed with a centrifuge but with added
difculty and cost. For the time being surface loading is employed
as a means of increasing the effective stress. Surface loading has
been successfully employed in the past with natural soils to over-
come model size effects in a variety of 1 g model tests.
 The study was performed at a low conning stress, so the effect
of dilation may have been over emphasized.
 The effect of the pore pressure was small due to the small size of
the model which yields negligible magnitude for the quantity
(cuid  H) where H is the depth to tunnel axis and cuid is the
unit weight of pore uid.
 SG1 particle size (0.150.5 mm) is somewhat large for the tun-
nel diameter (25 mm) used in these test. The size effect of the
particles is probably relevant and may have been over
emphasized.
110 M. Ahmed, M. Iskander / Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology 27 (2012) 101110
 Soil-tunnel interaction was studied with one tunnel size only,
like most studies. Use of different tunnel sizes would conrm
the lack of a size effect.
8. Conclusions
The evaluation of the stabilizing face pressure in mechanized
tunneling is a critical aspect for both, design and construction
phases. It has direct impact on ground movements and consequently
the safety of nearby structures and utilities. Potential problems
caused by instability and associated ground movement could lead
to public protests and eventually may impact the course of the pro-
ject. In this paper an experimental technique and procedures were
developed to analyze the progression of ground movements with
decreasing tunnel face pressure. A tunnel is pre-placed in transpar-
ent soil resembling medium dense saturated sands. Tunnel face sup-
port is simulated using an internal pressure applied inside the
tunnel. Tests are conducted by reducing the tunnel pressure in
stages until collapse of the soil occurs. Images of the soil, illuminated
by a laser light sheet, were captured after each decrement of tunnel
pressure and used to obtain corresponding 2D deformation elds.
Four tests were performed at the ordinary gravitational acceleration
(1 g) with various cover to depth ratios (C/D = 1.54.5). The use of
transparent soils permitted visualization of actual internal ground
deformations under the test conditions. The tests results were then
compared with centrifuge tests performed at various gravitational
accelerations (P1 g) reported by Chambon and Cort (1994) and
Oblozinsky and Kuwano (2006) and the analytical models proposed
by Leca and Dormieux (1990) and Mollon et al. (2009) and found to
be in a good agreement.
A minimum support pressure, rT, was achieved with pressures as
low as 10 1% of the effective vertical stress, rV, at the tunnel axis,
with C/D having a small effect on the magnitude of the pressure at
collapse. The observed ground deformations can be divided into
three stages in relation to lateral earth pressure coefcient, ka, rep-
resenting (1) Face Deformation (1 > rT/rV > 0.8ka), involving little
or no deformation; (2) Face Slip Stage (0.8ka > rT/rV > 0.5ka) involv-
ing increasing but stable deformation; and (3) Failure Stage (rT/
rV < 0.5ka) where excessive irrecoverable deformations occurred.
The observed failure mechanisms resembled a prismatic wedge
in front of the tunnel face extending upward in the form of a vertical
chimney conrming the mechanisms proposed by Horn (1961), and
Chambon and Cort (1994). Ground movements at collapse trans-
mitted to the surface with different extents depending on C/D value.
The chimney failure outcropped at the ground surface for C/D < 2.
These results are believed to be of practical interest for predict-
ing surface and internal ground deformations induced by tunneling
under various support pressure scenarios. Internal ground defor-
mations are particularly important for ensuring stability of under-
ground utilities.
Acknowledgements
Transparent soils were originally developed with NSF support
under Grant No. CMS 9733064. Continued NSF support under Grants
DGE 0337668 and DGE 0741714 is gratefully acknowledged. Re-
search using transparent soils is presently funded by the Defense
Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Grant No: HDTRA1-10-1-0049.
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