3D Tunnel Simulation using Material Softening 18-1

3D Tunnel Simulation using Material

Softening
In this tutorial, Phase2 is used to simulate the three-dimensional
excavation of a tunnel. In three dimensions, the tunnel face provides
support. As the tunnel face advances away from the area of interest, the
support decreases until the stresses can be accurately modelled with a
two-dimensional plane-strain approach. We will simulate this effect by
gradually softening the material inside the tunnel and observing the
change in settlement on the surface. Support is installed in the tunnel
when an appropriate amount of settlement occurs.

Topics covered

• 3D tunnel simulation
• Surface settlement
• Liners
• Material softening
• Selection Window
• Material Query
• Show Values

Geometry

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Model

Start the Phase2 Model program.

Project Settings
Open the Project Settings dialog from the Analysis menu and make
sure the General tab is selected. Define the units as being “Metric, stress
as kPa”. Do not change the number of stages. For this analysis, we could
perform the material softening over many stages, or by creating a series
of 1-stage models. We will do the latter so leave the number of stages as
1. Click OK to close the Project Settings dialog. If you see a warning
about the unit system then hit OK.

Boundaries
First we will define the excavation. Select Add Excavation from the
Boundaries menu. Type the letter i to indicate you wish to draw a circle
and hit Enter. You will now see the dialog for entering a circle. Select the
option for Centre and radius and set the radius to 3. Set the Number of
segments to 40 as shown.

Click OK. You will now see a circle that you can drag around with the
mouse. Enter 0 0 for the centre coordinates and hit Enter. The excavation
geometry is now defined.

To define the external boundary, select Add External from the

Boundaries menu. The default boundary is a box around the excavation.
Since we do not want the excavation to be in the centre of the external
boundary we need to define the boundary manually. Choose User Defined
for the Boundary Type and click OK. Now enter the points shown in the
figure at the start of this tutorial. Don’t forget the point at the middle of
the top boundary (0 , 15). This will come in handy later when we are
measuring settlements. Hit Enter to finish entering points. The model
should now look like this.

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Mesh
Now generate the finite element mesh. Select the Mesh Setup option in
the Mesh menu. The default options should be sufficient for this model.
Ensure that the Mesh Type is Graded, the Element Type is 3 Noded
Triangles, the Gradation Factor is 0.1 and the Default Number of Nodes
on All Excavations is 75. Click the Discretize button and then the Mesh
button. Click OK the close the dialog. The model should now look like
this:

Boundary Conditions
We want the top of the model to be a free surface. From the
Displacements menu select Free and then click on the two top sections
and hit Enter. This sets the top boundary to be free, including the two
corners. To re-fix the corners, choose Restrain X,Y from the
Displacements menu and select the left and right sides of the model and
hit Enter. The model should now look like this:

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Field Stress
Now define the insitu stress field.

1. Select the Field Stress option in the Loading menu.

2. Change the Field Stress Type from Constant to Gravity.

3. Check the Use actual ground surface checkbox.

4. Set the horizontal stress ratios to 0.6. This means that the
horizontal stress will be 0.6 times the vertical stress.

Click OK to close the dialog.

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Material Properties
First we will set the properties of the soil around the tunnel. Select the
Define Materials option in the Properties menu.

Type Soil for the name. Make sure the Initial Element Loading is set to
Field Stress & Body Force (both insitu stress and material self weight are
applied). Enter 22 kN/m3 for the Unit Weight. For Elastic Properties,
enter 200000 kPa for the Young’s Modulus and 0.25 for the Poisson ratio.
For Strength Parameters, make sure the Failure Criterion is set to Mohr-
Coulomb. Set the Material Type to Plastic, meaning the material will
yield/fail. Set the Tensile Strength to 2 kPa. Set the peak and residual
Cohesion to 20 kPa. Set the peak and residual Friction Angle to 40°.
Leave the dilation angle at 0° (no volume increase when sheared, non-
associated flow rule). Do not close the dialog.

Material 2 will represent the softened soil inside of the tunnel. Select the
tab for Material 2. Change the name to Softened Soil. Set all parameters
the same as for Material 1 (Soil) except:

1. Set the Initial Element Loading to None. This is necessary

since two materials that only differ by Young’s modulus will not
create an imbalance in the system of forces and therefore no
calculations will be performed. See Phase2 Theory FAQ(#10) for
more information.

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2. Set the Young’s Modulus to 180000 kPa. We will be testing

different values of Young’s modulus to simulate the softening soil
inside the tunnel. For the first model we will use a Young’s
modulus that is 90% of the modulus of the Soil.

3. Set the Material Type to Elastic.

4. Hit OK to close the dialog.

Now we need to assign the material properties. We only need to set the
material inside of the tunnel to material 2. To do this you can simply
right click inside the tunnel and select Assign Material > Softened
Soil. The model should now look like this:

Save the model by selecting Save As from the File menu.

Compute

Run the model using the Compute option in the Analysis menu. The
analysis should take a few seconds to run.

Once the model has finished computing (Compute dialog closes), select
the Interpret option in the Analysis menu to view the results.

Interpret

After you select the Interpret option, the Interpret program starts and
reads the results of the analysis. You will see the maximum stresses.
Change the contours to Vertical Displacement and turn on the deformed
boundaries by clicking the Display Deformed Boundaries button.

You can see that there is deformation into the tunnel and settlement at
the surface. Press the Display Deformation Vectors button to see this
even more clearly.

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Now we want to determine the amount of subsidence that has occurred at

the surface. Turn off the deformation vectors. From the Query menu
select Add Material Query. Choose the node at the top-centre of the
model (0 , 15). The cursor should snap to this point as you near it since
we defined this as a boundary point when we constructed the model. If
the cursor doesn’t snap to the point, right click and ensure all of the snap
options are on. Hit Enter after selecting the point and you will see the
following dialog:

Since we only selected 1 vertex we want the default option At each

vertex. We also want to show the queried values so hit OK to accept the
defaults.

You will now see the value of vertical displacement as shown:

Make a note of this number. We will use it to construct a settlement

curve as described in the next section.

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2D analysis

In three dimensions, as the tunnel excavation moves away from the area
of interest, increasing settlement will occur. We model this effect in 2D by
filling the tunnel with material of decreasing stiffness. You will generally
want to install your support after the tunnel excavation has moved
forward some distance (depending on the tunnel size, soil properties etc.).
If the amount of settlement that occurs when the tunnel has advanced
the desired distance is known (by 3D modelling, axisymmetric modelling
or simply through experience and intuition) then you can model this
settlement in 2D by using a material of the correct softness inside the
tunnel. To determine the correct softness, we require a curve of stiffness
versus settlement. We will construct this curve now.

Generally the settlement is plotted on the x-axis. On the y-axis we will

plot 1−β where β is the coefficient from 0 to 1 that is multiplied by the soil
stiffness to yield the stiffness of the soil inside the tunnel. We already
have 1 point on our graph, x = 0.927 mm (since settlement = negative
vertical displacement), y = 0.1 (since β = 0.9). You should now repeat the
above modelling exercise for different values of Young’s modulus as
shown:

Young’s modulus of Softened Soil (kPa) 1−β

180,000 0.1

120,000 0.4

80,000 0.6

40,000 0.8

20,000 0.9

10,000 0.95

5,000 0.975

1,000 0.995

500 0.9975

Obviously you do not need to rebuild the model each time, simply change
the modulus of the material inside the tunnel and rerun. You can easily
change the material properties in the Phase2 modeller by right clicking
inside the tunnel and selecting Material Properties.

Plot the results in your favourite spreadsheet and you should get a curve
that looks like this:

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0.8

0.6

1−β
0.4

0.2

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Settlement (mm)

The reason that the curve does not pass through the origin is that the
initial element loading for the material inside the tunnel was set to none.
Therefore there is some deformation of this material even if it is the same
stiffness as the surrounding soil since it will settle under its own weight.

NOTE: For deep excavations where you do not care about the surface
settlement it is more common to construct a “ground reaction curve”.
With this technique you will plot the Young’s modulus reduction factor
versus the tunnel convergence (strain). All other aspects of the analysis
are the same.

2D model of 3D tunnel

Now that we have the settlement curve we can determine the amount of
softening required to generate a 2D simulation of a 3D geometry. Assume
that we want to install our support when then tunnel has advanced 2 m
past us. Now assume that we have somehow determined that 2 m behind
the face, surface settlement = 3 mm. From our settlement curve we see
that 3 mm of settlement will occur when β = 0.1, i.e. the Young’s modulus
of the soil inside the tunnel should be set to 10% of the value for the
surrounding soil.

We will now construct a model in which a liner is installed around a

tunnel filled with soft soil and then the soft soil is removed. We expect to
see little additional settlement as the liner takes the remaining load.

Project Settings
Open your model in the Phase2 Model program. Select Project Settings
from the Analysis menu. Set the Number of Stages to 2. Click OK to
close the dialog.

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Material Properties
Select the Define Materials option in the Properties menu.

The material properties for the Soil should be set correctly. Click on the
tab for Softened Soil. We want the Young’s modulus to be 10% of that for
the Soil so set Young’s modulus to 20000 kPa. Click OK to close the
dialog.

Ensure that the material inside the tunnel is set to Material 2 (Softened
Soil) for Stage 1. Click on the tab to show Stage 2. Right click inside the
tunnel and select Assign Material > Excavate. The tunnel should now
be empty for Stage 2. Excavating the soft soil in Stage 2 simulates the
effect of the tunnel face moving far from the area of interest so that the
tunnel face no longer provides any support.

Liner
For this example we will use the default liner properties. Select Define
Liners from the Properties menu, and make sure that the following
liner properties are in effect for Liner 1: Young’s modulus = 30,000,000
kPa, Poisson’s Ratio = 0.2, Material Type = Elastic and thickness 0.1 m as
shown.

Click OK to close the dialog.

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We wish to install the liner at stage 2 so ensure that the Stage2 tab is
selected. From the Support menu choose Add Liner. You will see the
Add Liner dialog. Ensure the Liner Property is Liner 1 and Install at
Stage is set to 2. Click OK.

You now need to select all of the boundary segments on which to install
the liner. The easiest way to do this is by using a Selection Window.
Simply click and hold down the left mouse button somewhere above and
to the left of the tunnel. Now drag the mouse to draw a window around
the entire tunnel. Hit Enter to finish selecting. Your model should now
appear as shown for Stage 2.

Compute
You have now completed the construction of the model. Save it and run
compute by pressing the Compute button.

Interpret
Start the Interpret program by pressing the Interpret button.

When the Interpret program starts, you will see the maximum stresses in
Stage 1. As before, change the contours to show Vertical Displacement
and show the Deformed Boundaries. The model should appear exactly
as your model did when constructing the settlement curve. Verify that 3
mm of settlement have occurred by adding a material query to the top
centre vertex as described above.

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Now click on the tab to show Stage 2. You will see that some extra
displacement has occurred. The deformation of the tunnel boundary will
be greatly exaggerated. To show this in a more understandable way, right
click anywhere on the model and select Display Options. Click the
Stress tab. Under Scaling, set the Maximum Size to 5 mm. Click Done.
Your model for Stage 2 should look like this:

This shows that 0.17 mm of extra settlement has occurred after the liner
installation. This is due to deformation of the liner. If the stiffness
(Young’s modulus) of the liner was set to a higher value then we would
see less deformation. Note however that the liner is definitely providing
support. Look back at your settlement curve and you will see that the
settlement approaches 5 mm as the stiffness of the tunnel material
approaches 0. So clearly the liner is having an effect.

You can plot the bending moments on the liner by right clicking on it and
selecting Show Values > Bending Moment. Zoom in on the tunnel for
a clearer view. Your plot should look like this:

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You can clearly see the moments that result in the liner as the tunnel is
squeezed from above and below.

This concludes the tutorial, you may now exit the Phase2 Interpret and
Phase2 Model programs.

Phase2 v.6.0 Tutorial Manual