Design and Development of an EPB Shield Machine for the Geotechnical Centrifuge
Design and Development of an EPB Shield Machine for the Geotechnical Centrifuge
The rapid expansion of urban rail transit has intensified the demand for tunnelling in close proximity to existing infrastructure, creating significant challenges for maintaining ground stability and protecting adjacent structures in densely built environments. Centrifuge modelling has proven to be an effective tool for investigating tunnelling processes and ground responses; however, most existing simulators oversimplify soil-machine interactions and operational processes. To overcome these limitations, a novel miniature earth pressure balance (EPB) shield machine has been developed with a 150 mm cutterhead diameter, featuring independent control of shield advancement, cutterhead rotation, and soil discharge via three separate motors. The model EPB machine is designed to operate at up to 80g and enables the study of prototype tunnels ranging from 2.5 m to 10 m in diameter. The developed simulator demonstrates the ability to realistically reproduce EPB tunnelling mechanisms under in-situ geostress, offering valuable physical insights into cutterhead and chamber pressure design and assessing ground deformation in mechanised tunnelling projects.
P. Kumar; Xuejian Chen; Tarek Abdoun; R. L. Sousa
11th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG2026)
Session 1: New facilities, new equipment, and measuring techniques
https://doi.org/10.53243/ICPMG2026-382