Abstract:

In these modern times of space scarcity, underground tunnels play an important role as a key component of an urban transportation and utilities network. Any instability of tunnels will be highly detrimental to their performance thereby posing a threat to public safety, consequently cause life-threatening and infrastructure crippling consequences. Recent experiences show that tunnels become vulnerable during an earthquake event. Major seismic events have shown that tunnels in cohesionless soils may suffer extensive seismic d amage. Hence, a careful consideration of the effects of earthquake loadings on the analysis, design, construction, operation and risk assessment of tunnels is of great importance. For most tunnels, the interface condition is between full-slip and no-slip, so both cases should be investigated for critical lining forces. This paper presents method to calculate the effect of earthquake loads on tunnels