Impact of Building Features on Damage Caused by Tunnelling-Induced Ground Movements: Back-Analyses of Experimental Tests and Coupled Simulations

Tunnelling-induced ground movements can trigger damage on surface structures. A recent experimental campaign on half-scale brick masonry structures investigated the influence of building weight, façade openings distribution, and floor structures on building damage. Specimens were subjected to settlement profiles defined with reference to an eccentric tunnel and detailed monitoring data were collected. This paper first presents the back-analyses of the experiments using a macro-mechanical modelling approach for masonry. Model-specific output indicators are used with more traditional proxies to interpret the damage and describe the influence of building features on the observed crack patterns. The numerical results are consistent with the observations in terms of crack opening estimations (with absolute errors less than 1 mm in case of rigid floor) and damage categories, generally coincident between model and experiment. Coupled analyses are conducted to simulate the interaction between the structures, the underlying soil, and the tunnel for the same eccentric tunnel scenario. These analyses aim to understand how the examined building characteristics (weight, openings, floor structures) affect soil-structure-interaction phenomena. The critical influence of foundations, not examined in the experiments, is also highlighted via numerical models. It is shown that the relatively higher stiffness of the structures produces a marked damage reduction.