ABSTRACT
In current mechanized tunneling practice, the position of the shield machine during TBM-advancement is controlled by the shield driver with the aid of monitoring-based guidance systems. This results in an uneven movement of the machine. This contribution proposes a computational model able to support the TBM-steering during tunnel drives along curved alignments. A computational framework is developed to simulate the advancement and excavation processes, and to enable an efficient and realistic 3D-modeling of the advancement process and the shield-soil interactions during tunneling along arbitrarily curved alignments using the finite element method. The proposed framework combines a newly developed steering algorithm to simulate the TBM-movement during the excavation process. The steering algorithm serves as an artificial guidance system to automatically determine the exact position and the driving direction of the TBM in 3D-space. This modeling approach allows for better prediction of the shield behavior and thrusting forces during the advancement process.
