1-g shaking table tests on a shallow-buried tunnel in liquefiable ground: deformation and displacement responses
1-g shaking table tests on a shallow-buried tunnel in liquefiable ground: deformation and displacement responses
Shallowly buried tunnels located in liquefiable soils are highly susceptible to uplift and structural damage during seismic events. To better understand this phenomenon, a 1-g shaking table test was conducted on a model tunnel embedded in liquefiable ground. A unique aspect of this study lies in the tunnels design, which consisted of two segments differing only in surface roughness, which enables a direct evaluation of the influence of soil-structure interface friction on seismic response. The test results reveal that the presence of the tunnel substantially modified the strain development within the surrounding soil due to strong soil-structure interactions. Peak shear strains were markedly higher in the soil adjacent to the tunnel, particularly near the smooth segment. Moreover, the smooth-surfaced tunnel segment exhibited significantly greater uplift displacement than the rough-surfaced segment, confirming that surface roughness plays a critical role in controlling liquefaction-induced structural uplift. The study also found that uplift behavior of tunnels varied with seismic amplitude: under excitations with limited amplitude and duration, uplift only occurred during excitation, whereas under strong and longer excitations, secondary uplift happened after shaking ceased due to prolonged excess pore pressure dissipation and sustained upward water migration. Overall, the findings highlight the pronounced near-structure soil deformation induced by soil-structure interaction and underscore the challenges faced by numerical models in accurately simulating localized, large-strain behaviours at the tunnel-soil interface during seismic liquefaction.
Zexu Fan; Xi Xiong; Yong Yuan
11th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG2026)
Special Session 11: Underground Structures in Liquefiable Ground
https://doi.org/10.53243/ICPMG2026-84