Characteristics and Mitigation Measures of Floor Heave in Operational High-Speed Railway Tunnels

KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

The rapid development of high-speed railway tunnels has resulted in the increased application of ballastless track slabs. However, floor heave induces ballastless track slab deformation as a result of surrounding rock pressure, imposing serious challenges to the safety of railway systems. In this study, the characteristic of floor heave was analyzed based on field monitoring data. A new tunnel lining structure was then proposed to reduce the effect of floor heave on the slab track. The stress and deformation characteristics of the lining structure under different floor heave loads were analyzed through three-dimensional load structure numerical simulation, and the adaptability of the new tunnel lining structure was numerically studied. The results show that the floor heave typically occurred in the deep-buried sections of tunnel and the maximum floor heave was less than 50 mm during the operation of high-speed railway tunnels. When the new type of tunnel lining was adopted, the influence of the floor heave on the slab track was very small due to the reserved groove of the upper part of the invert and the high rigidity of the steel-reinforced concrete slab, thus effectively reducing the deformation of the tunnel floor heave. This research can be beneficial in the structural design of high-speed railway tunnels and the prevention of tunnel floor heave.

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Acknowledgments

This research is financially funded by Scientific and Technological Innovation Projects with Special Funds for Fundamental Scientific Research Business Fees of Central Universities (No. 2682019CX03), Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (No. E2020210068) and State Key laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and System Safety of Traffic Engineering Structures (No. ZZ2020-01).

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Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Transportation Tunnel Engineering, Ministry of Education, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610065, China

    Dongping Zhao

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610031, China

    Dongping Zhao

  3. State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Behavior and System Safety of Traffic Engineering Structures, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang, 050043, China

    Haobo Fan

  4. China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co. Ltd., Chengdu, 610031, China

    Dongping Zhao & Haobo Fan

  5. School of Architecture & Design, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, China

    Lingli Jia

Authors
  1. Dongping Zhao
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  2. Haobo Fan
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  3. Lingli Jia
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Correspondence to Haobo Fan.

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Zhao, D., Fan, H. & Jia, L. Characteristics and Mitigation Measures of Floor Heave in Operational High-Speed Railway Tunnels. KSCE J Civ Eng (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-021-2270-4

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Keywords

  • High-speed railway tunnel
  • Floor heave
  • Field monitoring
  • Numerical simulation
  • New tunnel lining structure