Citation

El Omari A, Chourak M, Echebba EM, Cherif SE, Navarro Ugena C, Rougui M, Chehade FH, Lamas Fernández F, Chaaraoui A. Infrastructures (Basel) 2021; 6(2): e29.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, International Society for Maintenance And Rehabilitation of Transport Infrastructures, Publisher MDPI: Multidisciplinary Digital Publications Institute)

DOI

10.3390/infrastructures6020029

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The last seismic events showed that tunnel lining may suffer extensive damage. Employing numerical modeling has a great importance in predicting the seismic performance of tunnels. This paper tests the tunnel lining of the Zaouit Ait Mellal (ZAM) twin tunnels located between the cities of Marrakesh and Agadir in Morocco. Dynamic analysis was adopted by FLAC 2D software using the finite-difference elements. Four soil cross-sections were chosen, with different support devices installed along the twin tunnels, such as rock bolts and steel ribs. The seismic signals introduced as input were obtained from three different earthquakes: Al Hoceima 2004 in Morocco, EL Centro 1940 in the USA, and Kobe 1995 in Japan. The numerical results show that the deformation of the tunnel lining is more noteworthy in the sections using steel ribs compared to those using rock bolts, which is observed by the large values of relative displacement, reaching 1020 (mm) and 2.29 × 105 (N.m/m) of maximum bending moment. The analysis indicates that these sections present higher vulnerability during an earthquake, which should be considered when looking at the overall safety of the tunnel.

Language: en

Keywords

finite-difference element; seismic performance; soil cross-sections; support type; tunnel lining