This is an early access version
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Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Nis , Niš , Serbia
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Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture of University of Niš , Niš , Serbia
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Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Nis , Niš , Serbia
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Nis , Niš , Serbia
Overview of current progress in the field of seismic regulations for the design of tunnel structures revealed that, despite significant progress in research work on seismic analysis of tunnels over the past few decades, however, a deficiency of systematic and precisely defined rules for the seismic design of tunnels still exists even in the most developed societies. Precisely for this reason, a great effort has recently been made in this research field in terms of finding simple approaches of the seismic analysis of tunnels that could be implemented in design codes and thus serve designers in everyday engineering practice. The response of tunnel structures to earthquake excitation is primarily conditioned by the strain field in the surrounding ground. The simplest approach in seismic analysis of tunnels is based on the assumption that deformations in the circular tunnel are identical to the deformations of the ground induced by seismic waves in its natural state, without tunnel excavation (the so-called "free-field deformation approach"). In addition, seismic design of tunnel structures taking into account the effects of soil-structure interaction is becoming increasingly important nowadays, because the effects of the interaction between the structure and the surrounding gorund can cause greater external forces on the tunnel structure (the so-called "soil-structure interaction approach"). The present study considers the most frequently used simple analytical expressions, regarding the idealised tunnel geometry and ground properties, for calculating the relevant design soil shear strain that occurs between the depths that correspond to the tunnel crown and the invert, on the one hand, and for determining the seismically induced forces in the tunnel lining taking into account the soil‒structure interaction effects, on the other hand. Furthermore, in order to evaluate the ability of the analytical expressions to simulate the most important aspects of the seismic behaviour of tunnels, numerical analyses were also carried out by one-dimensional free-field ground response analysis in the code EERA and by the simplified dynamic soil-structure interaction analysis in the software ANSYS, respectively. Lastly, the results obtained by the simple analytical and numerical approaches were evaluated, considering the main soil types - stiff soil with good properties and soft saturated soil with poor properties.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Science, Technological Development, and Innovations of the Republic of Serbia within the research project No. 451-03-65/2024-03/200095 (project TR36028: “Development and improvement of methods for analysis of the soil–structure interaction based on theoretical and experimental research”).
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