Dynamic Response of Pile-Soil Foundation with an Adjacent Tunnel under the High-Speed Train Loads: A Case Study

Abstract

In order to study the dynamic response characteristics of a pile-soil foundation when an adjacent tunnel exists, both model tests and numerical simulations were performed in this study. Taking the peak vibration acceleration, peak vibration velocity, and peak vibration displacement as the evaluation indexes of the dynamic response, the dynamic response of the pile-soil foundation with an adjacent tunnel under high-speed train loads is studied. A method of dividing the affected zones of the dynamic response based on the safety threshold is provided in this paper, which can evaluate the safety of the adjacent tunnel under the action of train load. Additionally, the effect of train speed on dynamic response is further analyzed. The results show that the dynamic response index inside the foundation decays significantly with increasing distance from the surface when the train load is applied, regardless of the presence or absence of the adjacent tunnel. Compared with an ordinary pile-soil foundation, the dynamic response indexes inside the foundation increase significantly when there is an adjacent tunnel. With the increase in the horizontal distance from the pile foundation, the distribution characteristics of the horizontal transverse direction of each dynamic response index inside the foundation change from a “wavy” distribution to a monotonically decreasing distribution. According to the safety threshold of vibration velocity, the foundation is divided into the hazardous affected zone, strongly affected zone, and weakly affected zone, and then the corresponding vibration reduction measures are adopted. With the increase in train speed, the effect of tunnel structure on the attenuation of dynamic response in a pile-soil foundation becomes more obvious.

Keywords

• high-speed railway
• adjacent tunnel
• pile-soil foundation
• dynamic response
• model test
• safety threshold