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Quantitative evaluation of geological uncertainty and its influence on tunnel structural performance using improved coupled Markov chain

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Abstract

The geo-structures embedded in the multiple variable strata could be significantly affected by the geological uncertainty. The quantitative evaluation of geological uncertainty and its influence on the structural safety of embedded tunnels are seldom studied in the past. This paper aims to analyse the effect of geological uncertainty on the structural performance of tunnel using the proposed stochastic geological modelling framework. The geological uncertainty is characterized using an improved coupled Markov chain model based on sparse limited boreholes. A mapping approach is presented to solve the mesh asymmetry problem between the simulated strata and the numerical tunnel model. The tunnel structural performance analysis is then conducted based on the combined model considering the geological uncertainty and tunnel structure. A geological uncertainty index (GUI) is proposed to quantitatively evaluate the level of uncertainty of each borehole and the whole site. The effect of the borehole layout scheme on uncertainty evaluation of factor of safety of tunnel structure is investigated by a large number of stratigraphic realizations. Boreholes collected from Norway with relatively more considerable variability and from Shanghai with relatively more minor variability are adopted as case studies to illustrate the proposed probabilistic analysis framework. The results show that the boreholes with larger GUI values and closer to tunnel locations have a greater weight to affect the embedded tunnel structural performance in uncertain geological strata.

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Acknowledgements

This study was substantially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51778474, 51978516, 52022070), China Scholarship Council (CSC) (201906260180), Shanghai Science and Technology Committee Program (No. 20dz1202200) and Consulting Project of Shanghai Tunnel Engineering Co., Ltd. (STEC/KJB/XMGL/0090). The financial supports are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Geotechnical and Underground Engineering of Minister of Education and Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Jin-Zhang Zhang, Hong-Wei Huang & Dong-Ming Zhang

  2. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117576, Singapore

    Jin-Zhang Zhang, Kok Kwang Phoon & Chong Tang

  3. Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore, 487372, Singapore

    Kok Kwang Phoon

  4. Department of Natural Hazards, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), Sognsveien 72, 0855, Oslo, Norway

    Zhong-Qiang Liu

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  1. Jin-Zhang Zhang
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Correspondence to Dong-Ming Zhang.

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Zhang, JZ., Huang, HW., Zhang, DM. et al. Quantitative evaluation of geological uncertainty and its influence on tunnel structural performance using improved coupled Markov chain. Acta Geotech. 16, 3709–3724 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-021-01287-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-021-01287-6

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