ABSTRACT
Tunnelling provokes changes in the stress state of a ground and consequently, some displacements are generated that spread across the excavation’s zone of influence, which may induce damage in the structures located therein. Several methodologies have been utilized to estimate the displacements generated by the excavation of a tunnel and the damage that such displacements can cause to the structures lying adjacent to the excavation area. These methodologies are distributed by the empirical, analytical and numerical approaches. The empirical approaches are easy to use, but have the disadvantage of not considering the ground resistance and deformability parameters (Chissolucombe et al., 2005a). The analytical approaches are also easy to use, but have the primary disadvantage of determining the various coefficients necessary for the use thereof. In using numerical approaches, one must have access to a test program that can supply the necessary parameters in a way as to be able to use constitutive models that faithfully represent the conditions of the ground and often have-as in the case of three-dimensional analyses-a high computational cost.
