Seminar - Jason Surjadinata - Tunnelling Induced Pile Foundation Behaviour

Wednesday, September 3, 2003, 1.10 - 1.50 pm
Civil Engineering Lecture Room 3

Abstract

Roads and railways network are expanding in the urban areas around the world. As the expansion continues, the limited space of the ground surface is a problem that will be encountered. One of the solutions to this problem is the use of underground tunnels for the roads and railways network expansion. However, tunnelling underneath existing foundations in the urban areas could have a significant impact on existing foundations.

The type of foundations that are most likely to feel the impact of tunnelling action are pile foundations, since tunnels will invariably cause the surrounding ground to move. These ground movements could damage the pile foundations. Hence, it is crucial for the assessment of the impact of tunnelling action on the pile foundation to be accurate, so the damage to the piles can be prevented or required remedial action can be taken.

The research that was undertaken concentrates primarily on the effect of tunnelling on pile group foundations. Both the structural and geotechnical behaviour of the foundation will be of interest. Three dimensional Finite Element (FE) analysis is the method employed to investigate the effect of tunnelling on pile group foundations.

In this seminar, the scope of this research and a brief summary of existing works on this topic will be presented. This will be followed by presentations of results in assessing the accuracy of the FE method used. Some preliminary results on the effect on tunnelling on a single pile behaviour will also be discussed and a brief summary for future works in this research will be outlined.