Infiltration behaviour of the slurry into tunnel face during slurry shield tunnelling in sandy soil

Abstract

This paper presents numerical analysis of the mud cake infiltration behaviour which is influenced tunnel face stability during excavation by slurry shield TBM. This analysis method can make useful data to select proper shield TBM type and to set up the construction plan . But effective analysis did not proposed until now. In this paper, we carried out numerical analysis using by PFC 2D fluid coupling simulation which is suitable for sandy soil modelling. As a analysis result, we checked that the slurry infiltration behaviour varied with soil permeability and slurry characteristic(specific weight, viscosity etc). This analysis method is helpful safety excavation through anticipating the proper slurry viscosity at the design stage and verifying the slurry quality at initial excavation stage.