ABSTRACT
RandstadRail is a future light-rail link between Rotterdam, The Hague and Zoetermeer in the Netherlands. The project involves 2 single track shield tunnels in Rotterdam, each with a diameter of 6.5 m and a length of 2.4 km. In some sections the top part of the tunnels will be placed in the soft holocene layers. Due to settlement of these layers external forces on the tunnel lining are increased (due to negative skin friction). An elastic formulation was used to predict the stress increase on the tunnel. To verify the calculation method centrifuge model tests were executed. From the results it was concluded that the elastic solution is a safe approximation. This paper presents a description of the calculation method, the results of the centrifuge tests and results from FEM back analysis.
