Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

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Computers and Geotechnics

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Research Paper

An analytical mechanism of limit support pressure on cutting face for deep T

tunnels in the sand
⁎
Pengfei Lia, Honghao Zoua, Fan Wanga, , Haocheng Xiongb,c
a
Key Laboratory of Urban Security and Disaster Engineering, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing 100124, China
b
National Center of Material Service Safety, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
c
The Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper aims at proposing a new failure mechanism to deal with the face stability of deep tunnels in sandy
Deep tunnels layer. Numerical simulations were conducted to analyze the influence of different variables on the limit support
Protodyakonov's theory pressure and the failure zone. Based on the results of the numerical simulation, a new failure mechanism that
Numerical simulation combined with the Protodyakonov's theory and the multi-block failure mechanisms is proposed. The limit
Limit analysis
analysis method is adopted to obtain the limit support pressure and failure zone. Finally, the limit support
Sandy layer
pressure and failure zone derived from the new mechanism are compared with those given by numerical si-
mulation, previous researches of limit analysis and centrifugal test. The results show that the new failure me-
chanism based on Protodyakonov's theory is more reasonable and accurate to analyze face stability of deep
tunnels.

1. Introduction
Tunnels play an important role in the rapid development of trans-
portation infrastructures in China. Highly mechanized shielding
method is widely used in underground highway and railway tunnel
construction due to its advantages of low safety risk, short construction
time and little impact on the surrounding environment. In the tunneling
process, excavation face tends to be unstable. An unstable face will
usually cause serious surface accidents in tunnel construction.
Therefore, ensuring the tunnel face stability is critical for tunnel con-
struction. Typically, a reasonable support pressure acting on tunnel face
is the key to keep the tunnel face stable. If the support pressure in the
chamber is not sufficient enough to balance the earth pressure, the
tunnel face may lose stability [1–6] or even collapse [7,8,41]. Such
failure will greatly harm the construction speed and safety, causing
huge economic and property losses. For such reasons, an assessment of
tunnel stability is essential in order to minimize ground deformations
and damages to existing structures during tunnelling processes [9] and
a lot of attention has been paid to determine optimum support pressure
in practical tunneling engineering.
At present, the researches on the face stability of shield tunnels
mainly focused on how to determine the limit support pressure on the
tunnel face. Theoretical analysis, model test, numerical simulation and
field measurement have been conducted in those researches. The two
main methods to analyze the tunnel face stability are limit equilibrium
method and limit analysis method. Both of them have their own ad-
vantages. The key to the research is the assumption of the failure mode
in front of tunnel face. A reasonable failure mode can determine the
limit support pressure with high accuracy.
The limit equilibrium method is known by its simple principle and
procedures. Horn [1] proposed a three-dimensional wedge model based
on the silo theory. In this model, the limit support pressure was ob-
tained by establishing the equilibrium relationship between the wedge
and prism. Jancsecz et al. [10] improved the theory and derived the
formulas considering soil arching effect. Based on this model, sub-
sequent scholars also conducted studies to improve the model in terms
of seepage [11], non-homogeneous soil [12], height of the prism [7],
etc.
The limit analysis method [13], including the lower-bound [14–16]
theorem and upper-bound theorem [2,17], provides more accurate re-
sults by considering the stress-strain relationship of rock and soil. Based
on the upper-bound theorem, Leca and Dormieux [2] built the three-
dimensional failure mechanism for shallow tunnel, and deduced the
corresponding expression of limit support pressure. Soubra et al. [17]
proposed a new three-dimensional failure mechanism consisting of
several rigid truncated cones, which improved the accuracy of limit
support pressure. Mollon et al. [18,19] established the three-dimen-
sional failure mechanism of tunnel face using spatial discrete

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wf04090@emails.bjut.edu.cn (F. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compgeo.2019.103372
Received 15 August 2019; Received in revised form 2 November 2019; Accepted 27 November 2019
Available online 03 December 2019
0266-352X/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
P. Li, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

technology and the “point-to-point” method, which further improved

the accuracy. Based on the multi-block failure mechanism, other
scholars conducted further studies on different working conditions,
such as the distributed pressures on the truncated cones [20], hetero-
geneous soil [21], longitudinal inclined tunnel [22], and in undrained
clays [23,24], etc.
The existing researches are mostly conducted to investigate the
tunnel face stability for shallow tunnels [25,26,42] using limit equili-
brium method and limit analysis method. These research results may be
not applicable to deep tunnels. For deep tunnels, if the soil arch effect is
not considered, the results obtained by the wedge model proposed by
Horn [1] are usually inconsistent with the results obtained from en-
gineering practice and model test. When the soil arch effect is con-
sidered, the three-dimensional loosening soil pressure can be deduced
by using the Terzaghi’s loosening earth pressure concept [27]. Although
the Terzaghi’s earth pressure does not change with the increase of the
tunnel depth after a certain depth, the assumption that the failure zone
extends to the ground surface vertically don’t agree with the practical
situation of deep tunnels.
The mechanism proposed by Leca and Dormieux [2] is generally
applicable for shallow tunnels. It was further improved by Soubra et al.
[17] as shown in Fig. 1. Soubra et al. [17] concluded that the effect
coefficient of soil weight Nγ remained unchanged when C/D was greater
than a certain value, which means that the limit support pressure re-
Fig. 2. Outlines of the failure zone in FLAC3D [20].
mains unchanged. However, the failure mechanism is inconsistent with
the shape of the failure area in the existing model test [28] and nu-
merical simulation [20], which can be further improved. [4,20,32,33]. For dry sandy ground, a series of numerical models were
For deep tunnels, Protodyakonov put forward the equilibrium arch built to discuss the influence of the tunnel diameter D, cover depth C
theory [29,30] to investigate the loosening earth pressure. This theory and internal friction angle φ on the limit support pressures. The para-
indicates that a balanced parabolic arch would be formed above the meters used for calculation of each case are shown in Table 1. As shown
tunnel after the excavation of the deep tunnels [30]. Zhang et al. [31] in Fig. 3, the boundary conditions are as follows: free boundary on the
conducted the collapse test of a deep tunnel and obtained the fitting upper surface, the normal constraint on the lateral boundaries, and
curve of collapse boundary. The fitting curve verified that the natural fixed constraint on the bottom. Mohr-Coulomb's failure criterion is
arch formed by collapse in deep tunnels was parabolic. Kirsch [28] used adopted. The Poisson's ratio of the soil v is determined by v = k0/
PIV technology to obtain the incremental shear strains by model tests (1 + k0), k0 = 1 − sinφ and the elastic modulus is 25 MPa [34]. All the
and get the boundary line of the loose zone presents an obvious para- computations were performed for non-dilatant material [4].
bolic shape. Zhang et al. [20] defined the failure zone in the sand soil Shield tunneling is a progressive process. In order to focus the
when C/D = 1, as shown in Fig. 2, the boundary line above the loose analysis on face stability in front of tunnel face, the excavation process
zone was also approximately parabolic. is simulated using a simplified single-step excavation scheme and the
In this study, several cases are discussed to analyze the limit support displacement of tunnel perimeter that has been excavated is fixed [23].
pressure and the shape of failure zone using numerical simulations in The support pressure σT applied on the tunnel face is the same as the
sandy ground. Then, a new failure mechanism is proposed to in- original horizontal ground pressure σ0 of the central tunnel point, and
vestigate the face stability of deep tunnels based on the the support pressure is gradually reduced to obtain the relationship
Protodyakonov's theory and multi-block failure mechanism. curve between the horizontal displacement of the central point and the
support pressure. When the support pressure of the tunnel face de-
creases to a certain value, the horizontal displacement of the central
2. Numerical simulations with FLAC3D
point increases sharply. This value of the support pressure is considered
as the limit support pressure.
2.1. Numerical models

Numerical simulation is widely used in tunnel research 2.2. Numerical simulation results

2.2.1. Limit support pressure

Fig. 1. Multi-block failure mechanisms [17].
The relationship curve of the support pressure on tunnel face and
the horizontal displacement of the central point of the tunnel face under
30 cases are shown in Fig. 4.
In the case of constant tunnel diameter D and internal friction angle
φ, the horizontal displacement in limit state increases with the increase
of the cover depth. However, the limit support pressure of the tunnel
face remains basically unchanged. This conclusion is consistent with the
results of the FEM [4] and the model test [3,35–38].
When the internal friction angle is 20° and the tunnel diameter is
6 m, 8 m, 10 m, 12 m and 14 m, the limit support pressures obtained
from numerical simulation are 21.3 kPa, 30.8 kPa, 39.8 kPa, 49.8 kPa
and 57.4 kPa, respectively. The results show that with the increase of
tunnel diameter, the limit support pressure increases continuously,
which is roughly linear.

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Table 1
Calculation parameters.
Cases Tunnel diameter Cover depth ratio Friction angle Unit weight Elastic Modulus
D (m) C/D φ (°) γ (kN/m3) E (MPa)

Case 1–25 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 20 18 25

Case 26–30 10 2 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 18 25

3. Proposed analytical model

3.1. Problem description

Based on the results illustrated in Section 2.2, a new failure mode is

proposed combining with the application of Protodyakonov's theory
[30], as shown in Fig. 6. A circular tunnel with a diameter D, a cover
depth C and a uniform support pressure σT acting on the tunnel face is
considered. The failure zone of the tunnel face is composed of collapse
area ① and sliding area ②. The three-dimensional shape of area ① is a
parabola rotated around the axis. The height of area ① is H. The size and
shape of area ① meet with Protodyakonov’s theory. The soil in area ①
acts on area ② by its own weight. Area ② is the failure zone induced by
shear sliding, along the inclined sliding surface.
Fig. 7 shows the geometry of the 3D improved new mechanism. It is
assumed that the support pressure σT is uniformly distributed. The
improved failure mechanism is composed of five rigid blocks with el-
liptical cross-sections and the arch-shape collapse zone Block (6). The
main difference between this mechanism and Zhang et al. [20] lies in
block 6, whose shape and size are based on Protodyakonov’s equili-
brium arch theory instead of the ellipsoid theory of particle flows in
Fig. 3. Numerical model for the analysis of tunnel face stability.
sublevel cave mining [39].
The five truncated rigid cones have opening angles that are equal to
2φ, which are the same as the previous studies [17,20]. The char-
When the tunnel diameter is 20 m and the internal friction angle of acteristic parameters of its truncated rigid cone are θi . The angle be-
soil is 15°, 20°, 25°, 30°, 35°, the limit support pressures are 66.7 kPa, tween the axis of the truncated rigid cone and the horizontal is αi , and
39.8 kPa, 26.2 kPa, 18.7 kPa and 13.4 kPa. The results show that with α1 = α . The intersection of the first truncated cone (adjacent to the
the increase of internal friction angle of soil, the limit support pressure tunnel face) with the circular tunnel face is named cross-section 1. The
decreases continuously, which is approximately logarithmic. intersection of adjacent blocks are named as cross-section i, (1 ⩽ i ⩽ 6) .
All of them are an ellipse, and the semi-axis lengths of the ellipses are
2.2.2. Deformation characteristics of tunneling face on the limit conditions ai , bi (1 ⩽ i ⩽ 6) .The angle between the cross-section i and i + 1 is βi
Fig. 5 shows the displacement contour lines of the failure zone in (for 1 ⩽ i ⩽ 5).
front of the tunnel face. Only six cases are given because of lack of
space. The displacement contour exerts an “arch” shape and the
equivalent displacement lines show a “corrugated” shape. When the 3.2. Analytical solutions
diffusion range increases gradually, the displacement decreases from
bottom to top, and does not spread to the surface. Since the failure area 3.2.1. Geometric properties
of tunnel face can’t be calculated directly by the numerical simulation Assume that the variables are βi (for 1 ⩽ i ⩽ 4 ) and α1. According to
of a continuous medium, this paper uses the method by Zhang et al. the geometric relationship, αi and θi can be described as follows:
[20] (the position within a sudden increase gradient can be defined as
the boundary strip of the failure zone) to outline the boundary strip of α (i = 1)
⎧
the failure zone at collapse (marked with a red line in Fig. 5). As shown αi = i−1
in Fig. 5, the upper boundary of the failure zone also shows an “arch” ⎨ ∑ βi + θi (i = 2,3,4,5)
shape. The soil above the red line almost remains the initial state be- ⎩i=1 (1)
cause the soil arch effect can maintain its stability. The soil beneath the
red line collapses downwards and detaches from the soil above the red α (i = 1)
line due to its own gravity. θi = ⎧
⎨
⎩ βi − θi − 1 (i = 2,3,4,5) (2)
According to Fig. 5(a), the cover depth has no influence on the
failure shape. According to Fig. 5(b), with the increase of the internal
The area ai , bi and area Ai of the cross-section i are calculated as
friction angle, the range of the disturbed zone decreases. Meanwhile,
follows:
the “arch height” of the failure zone decreases and the width of the arch
foot narrows, which indicates that the soil in front of tunnel face shows D
⎧ 2 (i = 1)
a good self-stability. As shown in Fig. 5(c), The failure mechanism from ⎪ i
the side view also shows that the boundary strip of the failure zone ⎪D cos(θi + φ)
ai = 2 ∏ cos(θi + 1 − φ) (i = 2,3,4,5)
exerts an “arch” shape, which is the same as that discussed from the ⎨ k=1
front view. Combined with the front view and side view of the failure ⎪ cos(β4 − β3 + β2 − β1 + α + φ)
⎪ a5 sin(2 (i = 6)
mechanism, it is reasonable to conclude that the upper part of the ⎩ β4 + 2β2 + α + φ) (3)
failure zone from 3D prospective is an arch-shape failure zone.

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P. Li, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

(a) Case 1~5 (b) Case 6~10

(c) Case 11~15 (d) Case 16~20

(e) Case 21~25 (f) Case 26~30

Fig. 4. Relations between the horizontal displacement and the support pressure.

⎧ ai cos(θi + φ) cos(θi − φ) follows:

cos φ
(i = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
⎪
bi = 5 5 A1 h1 − A2 h2
(i = 1)
⎨ sin( ∑ θi +φ) sin( ∑ θi − φ) ⎧ 3
⎪ a6 i=1 i=1
(i = 6) ⎪A h
i i − Ai + 1 hi + 1
⎩ cos φ (4) Vi = 3
(i = 2, 3, 4)
⎨
⎪ A5 h5 − A5 h′5
(i = 5) (6)
Ai = πai bi (5) ⎩ 3

As shown in Fig. 7, the sliding area ② consists of five truncated where

cones, and the volumes Vi (for 1 ⩽ i ⩽ 5) of the truncated cones are as

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P. Li, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

(a) Case 11, Case 13, Case 15

(b) Case 26, Case 28, Case 30

(c) The failure zone from the side view for case 13
Fig. 5. Displacement contours of the limit conditions.

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P. Li, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

Fig. 6. The new 3D improved failure mechanism of the deep tunnel in the sand.

Fig. 8. The velocity field of the new mechanism.

According to velocity hodograph in Fig. 8, the velocities relation-

ships are described by the following equations:
i
cos(θk + φ)
vi = v1 ∏ (i ⩾ 2)
k=2
cos(θk + 1 − φ) (10)

sin(2θi + 1)
vi, i + 1 = vi (i ⩾ 1)
cos(θi + 1 − φ) (11)

Fig. 7. Geometry of new mechanism. 3.2.2. Limit support pressure

According to the upper-bound theorem, the stability condition of
⎧ h1 =
D cos(α + φ) cos(α − φ) the tunnel face is
sin(2φ)
⎪ Pe ⩽ Pv (12)
⎪ D cos(α + φ) cos(β1 − α + φ)
h2 =
⎪ sin(2φ)
i−1
where Pe and Pv represent respectively the power of the external loads
⎨ h = h ∏ cos(θk + 1 + φ) (i = 3, 4, 5) and the dissipation power. The power of the external loads Pe is com-
⎪ i 2 cos(θk − φ)
⎪
k=2 posed of three components: the power PT of the support pressure σT , the
sin(2β4 + 2β2 + α − φ)
⎪ h′5 = h5 power Psoil of the gravity of the soil in collapse area ①, and the power Pγ
⎩ cos(θ5 − φ)
of the gravity of the soil in sliding area ②, that is
The bottom surface of the collapse area ① is a circular shape and Pe = PT + Psoil + Pγ (13)
cross-section 6 is an ellipse. When calculating the weight of the soil
acting on the fifth truncated cone, the method that is used in the limit The power PT of the support pressure σT is expressed as
equilibrium method is referred. In the research of limit equilibrium PT = −A1 cos ασT v1 (14)
method, the size of the wedge-shaped block is determined by the area of
the tunnel face. So, the volume of soil in the collapse area ① can be The power Psoil of the gravity of the soil in collapse area ① is denoted
gotten by the area cross-section 6 and the Protodyakonov’s theory. as
The area of the circle is A6 . Thus, the radius R of the circle can be Psoil = Vsoil γ sin(2β2 + 2β4 + α ) v5 (15)
calculated as
The power Pγ of the gravity of the soil in sliding area ② is calculated
A6 as
R=
π (7)
Pr =[V1 sin αv1 + V2 sin(2β1 − α ) v2 + V3 sin(2β2 + α ) v3
According to the Protodyakonov’s theory, the hight H of collapse + V4 sin(2β1 + 2β3 − α ) v4 + V5 sin(2β2 + 2β4 + α ) v5] γ (16)
area ① can be obtained as
The dissipation power Pv in the sliding area ② of the failure zone is
2R R described as
H= =
2f f (8)
A cos α A5 sin(2β2 + 2β4 + α ) ⎞
where f represents the rock consolidating coefficient, and f = tan φ in Pv = ⎜⎛ 1 v1 − v5 ⎟ c cos φ
⎝ sin φ sin φ ⎠ (17)
cohesionless soil.
The volume Vsoil of collapse area ① is calculated as By substituting Eqs. (12), (13)–(17) into Eq. (10) and equating the
power Pe of the external loads to the dissipation power Pv in the sliding
πR3 area ② of the failure zone, the upper-bound solution for the support
Vsoil = ∬ f (x, y) dσ= 2 tan φ
D (9) pressure σT at the tunnel face associated with the new mechanism in
this paper is obtained as follows:
The velocity direction of the truncated rigid cone is parallel to the
axis of the truncated rigid cone. The velocity of the truncated rigid cone σT = max [Nγ γD]
α, β1, β2, β3, β4 (18)
i and the relative velocity between two successive rigid truncated rigid
cone i and i + 1 are expressed as vi (for 1 ⩽ i ⩽ 5) and vi, i + 1 (for where Nγ is the non-dimensional coefficient and represents the effect of
1 ⩽ i ⩽ 4 ), respectively. soil weight, that is

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P. Li, et al. Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372

Fig. 9. Comparisons of the limit support pressures between the present me-
chanism and the numerical simulations.
V2 sin(2β2 − α ) v 2 V sin(2β + α ) v3
⎡ AV1 sin α
+ + 3 C2 + 4 A 1cos α 3
1 cos α A1 cos α v1 v1
Nγ = ⎢
⎢ +
(V5 + Vsoil) sin(2β2 + 2β4 + α ) v5
⎣ A1 cos α v1
The optimal solution of limit support pressure for a deep shield
tunnel in the sand layer can be obtained by maximizing σT in Eq. (18)
with respect to the five unknown variables α, β1, β2, β3, β4 (im-
plemented in MATLAB software).
4. Comparisons
4.1. Comparison of the limit support pressure with the numerical simulation
Fig. 9 shows the comparison of the limit support pressure between
the present mechanism and numerical simulations. With the increase of
tunnel diameter, the limit support pressures by the two methods in-
crease linearly and the slope of the two straight lines is nearly the same.
However, the results of the theoretical model in this paper are larger
than the numerical simulation results, which has a good agreement
Fig. 10. Comparisons of the limit support pressure between the present work
and the previous studies.
with the results of many theoretical models [2,17]. It shows that the
V sin(2β + 2β − α ) v4 model proposed in this paper provides a safe estimation of the limit
⎤ support pressure. With the increase of friction angle in the soil, the
1 v1
⎥/D
⎥ analytical solution and numerical simulation solutions decreased. The
⎦ two curves are approximately logarithmic, and the curvature is almost
(19) consistent.
4.2. Comparison of the limit support pressure with present research
Fig. 10 shows the comparison of limit support pressure between the
proposed mechanism and other existing mechanisms [2,11,17]. For the
upper-bound solutions, higher limit support pressure values indicate
better solutions [19]. The limit support pressures obtained from the
present mechanism are greater than those obtained from the other
upper-bound solutions. In addition, all the upper-bound solutions are
much less than limit equilibrium solutions.
As shown in Fig. 11, the limit support pressure obtained by the
proposed mechanism is larger than that obtained by other researchers
[2,17] and is closest to that obtained by centrifugal test [40], which
proves that the failure mechanism in this paper has better accuracy and
superiority.

7
P. Li, et al.
Fig. 11. Comparisons of the limit support pressure between the present work
and the theoretical solution.
Fig. 12. Comparisons of the failure zone between the present work and the
centrifugal test.
4.3. Comparison of the proposed failure zone with present research
Chambon et al. [3] obtained the active failure mechanism of non-
cohesive soil layer through the centrifuge test, which was compared
with present mechanism, as shown in Fig. 12. It indicates that the
outlines of the lower part of the failure zone obtained from the present
mechanism are similar to the outlines obtained from the centrifuge test.
Fig. 13. Comparisons of the failure zone among the present mechanism, Soubra et al. [17] and the numerical simulation.
8
Computers and Geotechnics 119 (2020) 103372
The width of the upper part of the outlines is 0.35D and 0.3D respec-
tively, which is relatively close. Whereas, the height of the upper part of
the outlines varies greatly. Combined with the analysis of relevant
studies [31], it is believed that a collapse arch will be formed when the
limit state is reached. Once the limit state reaches, the arch foot basi-
cally remains unchanged with time, and the arch crown continues to
collapse upward.
The failure zones obtained from the numerical simulations using
FLAC3D in Cases 26–30 were compared with those given by the present
mechanism and those obtained by the multi-block mechanism proposed
by Soubra et al [17]. As shown in Fig. 13, the failure zones given by the
present mechanism agree well with those from the numerical simula-
tion even if the internal friction angle changes. Compared to the multi-
block mechanism by Soubra et al. [17], the upper part of the present
mechanism assumed in this paper is more reasonable (closer to the
numerical simulation) and the range of the failure zone is larger. The
more reasonable and larger failure zone makes the power of the soil
gravity in upper part of the present mechanism in Eq. (15) higher than
that for the multi-block mechanism by Soubra et al. [17]. Thus, the
limit support pressure by the present mechanism is higher than that by
the multi-block mechanism.
5. Conclusions
To analyze the tunnel face stability of deep shield tunnel in sand,
this paper puts forward a new three-dimensional failure mechanism
based on Protodyakonov’s theory. A series of analytical formulas for the
limit support pressure of tunnel face were derived by using the upper-
bound theorem. Then, the limit support pressures and failure zones
obtained from the present mechanism, numerical simulations and
centrifuge test were compared. The main conclusions are as follows:
(1) The numerical simulations result shows that when C/D ≥ 1 in the
sand, the increase of tunnel depth has no obvious influence on the
limit support pressure. The limit support pressure is positively
correlated with D and negatively correlated with φ. In Combination
with the Protodyakonov’s theory and multi-block failure me-
chanism, a new three-dimensional failure mechanism is proposed
for deep tunnels in sand. The analytical solutions of limit support
pressure are derived by using the upper-bound theorem.
(2) The limit support pressure from the present mechanism are com-
pared with those obtained from numerical simulations, the existing
researches and centrifuge test. The limit support pressure obtained
from the present mechanism is higher than that obtained from other
failure mechanisms with upper-bound theorem, which indicates
that the present mechanism is more accuracy. The comparison of
limit support pressure between the present mechanism and nu-
merical simulation also validated the new mechanism.
(3) The outlines of the failure zone obtained from the present me-
chanism were compared with those given by the centrifuge test and
P. Li, et al.
the numerical simulations using FLAC3D. There are some differ-
ences in the upper range of the failure zone. The failure zones given
by the present mechanism agree well with those of the numerical
simulation for different internal friction angle. The comparison
results indicate that the proposed mechanism based on
Protodyakonov’s theory is reasonable to analyze face stability of
deep tunnel in the sand.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Pengfei Li: Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Project
administration. Honghao Zou: Methodology, Software, Data curation,
Writing - original draft. Fan Wang: Validation, Formal analysis,
Writing - review & editing. Haocheng Xiong: Investigation,
Visualization.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
The financial support for this work has been provided by National
Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 51778025 and
51978019), which are gratefully acknowledged.
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