Evaluation of Seismic Behavior and Earth’s Surface Acceleration, by Interaction of Tunnels with Different Shapes and Different Types of Soils

Abstract

With the increasing population and the consequent needs for transport facilities, the construction of tunnels in urban environments is fast growing. Tunneling at each depth of the soil, causes changes in the earth’s surface; this is more important about urban areas tunnels, especially when crossing the residential areas, so having knowledge of their performance is really important. Some of the consequences of underground tunneling are earth surface moving around the tunnel, movement of tunnel’s surrounding and changes in earthquake acceleration. The performance and behavior of underground structures have been studied by numerous researchers, but the effect of tunneling on earthquake records and its effects on aboveground structures have been getting less attention. The current article will try to study and examine the changes in seismic velocity at ground level, structural response spectrum, and Fourier spectrum with digging a circular tunnel. The results show that digging a circular tunnel at ground level will cause a change in the earthquake records profile.