Simple approach to predicting ground displacements caused by tunnelling in undrained anisotropic elastic soil

An attempt to develop a kinematically based approach to predicting ground settlements due to tunnelling is represented, by using the more reliable data of the commonly observed settlement troughs, rather than imposing the boundary conditions on the tunnel surface, which have a high level of uncertainty. The anisotropic elastic model used in this work is highly simplified, and the resulting analytical solution is of an approximate nature. Nevertheless, it seems to provide good agreement with both the shape and the magnitude of the observed settlement trough. Based on this solution, a modification is proposed for the widely used empirical Gaussian curve, by correlating the trough width parameter K with the ratio between the two anisotropic shear moduli, Ghh/Gvh.