Seismic Analysis of Buried Reinforced Concrete Tunnels

Shawn Carey, P.E. – SRNS, LLC

Leslie Sprague, P.E. – SRNS, LLC
Jay Amin, SRR, LLC
Background
• Seismic loads on Buried Tunnels
A) Axial deformation
B) Curvature
C) Racking

C ) Racking

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Tunnel Racking Methodologies

• Simplified Frame Analysis (Wang, 1993)

– Well known design methodology for new tunnels
– Estimate structural racking deformation based on relative flexibility of tunnel and surrounding soil
media
– Improvement over conventional design assuming structural displacement equal to free-field soil
displacement which is very conservative for stiff structures in soft soil
– Approximates complex SSI problem

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Tunnel Racking Methodologies

• Soil-Structure Interaction Analysis

– Best representation of system, but highly complex solution
– SASSI is well known example of software

• Frame Analysis on Soil Springs

– Assume structure displacement equal to free-field soil displacement and place tunnel on soil
springs
– Allows for rigid body rotation of tunnel
– Oversimplification of complex problem
without benchmarking

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Case Study at SRS

• A buried, reinforced concrete, ventilation tunnel at SRS has been subject to severe
degradation over the decades.
– Interior reinforcing exposed in many areas
• Tunnel conveys contaminated airstream from processing facility to sand filter
– total length approximately 500-ft
– Top of tunnel approximately 15-ft below grade
– 9-ft x 12-ft cross section in single tunnel and double tunnel configurations
• Poorly compacted backfill in relatively soft native soil
• Tunnel is Safety Class and required to maintain function during and after a
PC-3/SDC-3 seismic event
• Determine moments and shears in tunnel using the three methodologies described
previously

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Relative soil displacements

• Relative soil displacement at top of tunnel (compared to bottom) determined using

SHAKE
Soil Case Relative Soil 
Displacements (in)

Upper Bound 0.084

Best Estimate 0.088

Lower Bound 0.122

– Overall very small relative displacements

between top and bottom of tunnel

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Racking Loads - Wang

• Based on relative flexibility, free-field displacement is reduced or amplified

Soil Case Relative Soil  Racking  Final Relative 
Displacements (in) Coefficient Structural 
Displacements (in)
Upper Bound 0.084 1.5 0.126
Best Estimate 0.088 1.25 0.110
Lower Bound 0.122 0.6 0.073
• Required forces to yield required relative displacement (UB case controls):

16.5 kip
3.5 kip/ft

– Tunnel is actually quite stiff, thus requiring large forces even for small displacements

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Racking Loads – Soil Springs

• Assume relative lateral displacement of structure is equal to that of soil

• Soil spring stiffness based on subgrade modulus of reaction (k1)
– Not reduced for foundation width in order to provide upper bound solution
• Model allows rigid body rotation
• Required forces to yield required relative displacement (LB case controls):

2.1 kip
0.44 kip/ft

• Wang vs soil spring – very different loads

– Expected result due to lower lateral stiffness of tunnel on soil springs vs. pinned base
with Wang
– Obtain structural forces from STAAD model

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Racking Loads - SASSI

• 2D SASSI Model
– Obtain structural forces directly from SASSI

• Analyze tunnel in SASSI and compare structural forces.

• Models developed with and without explicit backfill modelling

SASSI Model (double tunnel) 
SASSI Model (double tunnel) 
w/ excavated backfill 
w/o excavated backfill 
elements
elements

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SASSI Double Tunnel Model - Native Soil Study Results

• Negligible difference between structural SASSI Results

moments in wall between models with
and without backfill

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Comparison: Racking Methods

Moment on exterior wall – Analysis Method Seismic D/C of moment on exterior 

process tunnel wall using LB soil 
double tunnel profile
STAAD – soil springs
Wang Method / 1.03

Soil Spring  / 0.31
Approach
SASSI / 0.37

Comparable results between the soil spring 
analysis approach and the SASSI Analysis with 
LB Soil Profile

Demands from Wang method are much 
larger

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Comparison – Triangular vs point racking load

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Single Tunnel Model

• Same approach used for the single tunnel as for the double tunnel model
• Large difference between Wang vs soil spring lateral loads

• SASSI Model: Grade Level

STAAD – 2-D Model Beam element Structural Elements

T-CLC-H-01111 SASSI 2-D SASSI-2D

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Single Tunnel Analysis: Comparison

Analysis Method D/C of moment on Single tunnel 

wall using LB soil profile
Wang Method / 1.14
STAAD ‐ Soil Spring Soil Spring  / 0.22
Approach
SASSI / 0.37

Comparable results between the soil spring 
analysis approach and the SASSI Analysis with 
LB Soil Profile

Demands from Wang method are much 
larger

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SASSI Single Tunnel Analysis Output- Moment on wall

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Comparison of SASSI to Existing Analysis for Single Tunnel- Moment on wall

High Strength Maximum D/C using 

Maximum D/C using SASSI
Soil Profile Analysis Method in STAAD
∗
10.83
Lower Bound 0.22 0.37
∗
29.4
∗
5.6
Best Estimate 0.19 0.17
∗
29.4
∗
3.21
Upper Bound 0.17 0.11
∗
29.4

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Single Tunnel Analysis: Racking - Wang vs. Analysis Approach vs. SASSI

Analysis Method D/C of Shear on Single tunnel wall 

using LB soil profile
Wang Racking  8.46
0.63
Method 13.4
Soil Spring 1.47
0.11
Approach 13.4
SASSI 3.1
STAAD ‐ Soil Spring
0.23
13.4

Wall Shear capacity as designed is 13.4

Comparable results between the STAAD soil 
spring analysis approach and the SASSI 
Analysis with LB Soil Profile

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SASSI Single Tunnel Analysis Output- Shear on wall

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SASSI Single Tunnel Analysis Output- Moment on Roof

Single Tunnel SASSI & STAAD ANALYSIS  
ROOF MOMENTS (BE)
4.00

3.00 SASSI Roof Moment
STAAD Trapezoidal load
2.00
STAAD Concentrated load

1.00
Moment (k‐ft/ft)

0.00

‐1.00

‐2.00

‐3.00

‐4.00
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00 8.00 9.00 10.00
Distance from Left end (feet)

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SASSI Single Tunnel Analysis Output- Shear on Roof

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Results and Conclusions

• For the SRS case study, seismic demand on the embedded tunnel wall and roof is 2
to 6 times greater using the Wang Racking Method vs. the results obtained from
SASSI and a simplified soil spring approach.
• Use of Wang, while appropriate for new design, can yield very conservative results.
– SRS case is on edge of applicability of Wang method
• Relatively shallow embedment (depth to height < 1.5)
• Structure relatively very stiff
• For the SRS case study , the seismic demand on the wall and roof from SSI
analysis are very close to those to the simplified soil spring approach
• Tunnel could not have been qualified using very conservative Wang Racking
Method demands

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• EXTRA Slides beyond

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Overall Impact Example – Double Tunnel Moment

Max D/C at bottom LC 125 to 128

D/C from calculation = 0.73 Soil Spring 9 ∗ /

0.31
Seismic demand from calculation = 0.31 Approach 29 ∗ /
10.83 ∗ /
Seismic demand from SASSI = 0.37 SASSI
0.37
29 ∗ /

D/C based on SASSI = 0.73 – 0.31 + 0.37 = 0.79 < 1.0

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Overall Impact Example – Single Tunnel Shear

Max D/C at End of Roof

D/C from calculation = 0.80

Seismic demand from calculation = 0.045
Seismic demand from SASSI = 0.103

D/C based on SASSI = 0.80 – 0.045 + 0.103 = 0.86 < 1.0

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Study Scope of Work

• The objective of the 2D SASSI analysis is to obtain initial comparison of the

horizontal, seismic forces on the walls against the results from the current analysis
using UB and LB soil profiles from SHAKE (Figure 3)
– Using the simplified soil spring analysis methodology, additional results were obtained
using the UB soil profile for comparison to the results from the SASSI UB soil model
(Figures 4 & 5)

• In SASSI, the tunnel is modeled with beam elements and the excavated soil region
is modeled with two-dimensional “quadrilateral plane strain” elements (Figure 2)

• SASSI output also includes In-Structure-Response-Spectra (ISRS) at surface, roof

and base level of the tunnel (Figure 6) and transfer functions (Figure 7)

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Existing Tunnel Analysis

• In the original calculation using the simplified soil spring approach, the controlling
free-field, relative displacement based from the Best Estimate (BE), Upper Bound
(UB) and Lower Bound (LB) soil profiles was used to obtain the racking point load
and triangular distributed load on the wall (Figure 1)
– LB soil profile yielded the controlling case

• If used without a soil spring at the base, the Wang racking methodology yields
seismic force which exceeds the capacity on the tunnel without adding any other
loads, i.e. lateral soil pressure, soil load on top of the tunnel (Figure 2)

• The original calculation used a racking approach with the addition of a soil spring
beneath the base of the tunnel section to determine seismic load

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