FREE FOOD - Please join us for a webinar on Tunnels in Swelling Ground on Aug. 28th, 12PM - 1PM , Berthoud 206

UCA will provide lunch for in person attendees. The webinar will be streamed to the in person audience.

We will start with a brief introduction to the new book on tunneling “Tunnel
Design Methods” by A. Bobet and H.H. Einstein with a short discussion about the
book contents and the book objectives. This will be followed by one of the
aspects of tunneling, included in the book, which is that of tunnels in swelling
ground.
Swelling ground, i.e. time dependent volume increase, can have detrimental
effects on tunneling. Very often swelling occurs together with squeezing i.e. time
dependent shear deformations. In this presentation the emphasis will be placed
on swelling ground with a few remarks on combined swelling and squeezing. The
discussion will start with a brief description of the underlying physico-chemical
processes, which can be subdivided into (physico) chemical processes, and largely
mechanical processes. This is done through a description of the processes and
examples of these processes affecting the performance of tunnels. Next will be
descriptions of the associated testing and of a few models representing the
processes. All this then leads to design in which we present the passive (flexible)
or active (resistance) methods as well as combinations and other actions with
which damage caused by swelling can be limited.