Abstract
Alborz twin tunnel along with an exploratory or service tunnel between the two main tunnels, are the longest tunnels section in Tehran–Shomal highway with 6.3 km length. The service tunnel is designed to be used for geological investigations, ventilation, transportation during the construction of main tunnels, water drainage, ground improvement by grouting, and emergency exit. An open tunnel boring machine (TBM) of Wirth Company was used to drive this service tunnel. With regard to the fact that in such mechanized tunneling projects, performance of the TBMs is of the most importance, which affects the economy and timing of the projects; on the other hand, geotechnical conditions of the region play a significant role in this respect, this effect was investigated during this study. In this study, two main elements of the TBM performance including the rate of penetration and utilization factor were investigated using artificial neural network and Statistical Package for Social Sciences. It is shown that geotechnical conditions have considerable effect on the rate of penetration. Whereas, utilization is largely affected by management and non-rock mass-related parameters including delays, wasted times, maintenance, labor, etc. With regard to the available data, four parameters including uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), friction angle, Poisson’s ratio, and cohesion were selected to be studied. Based on assessments conducted using these approaches, the rate of effectiveness of four selected parameters on penetration rate, in a descending order, was as follows: UCS, friction angle, Poisson’s ratio, and cohesion. For increasing utilization, it was concluded that minimizing time delays by good management is the most effective way. Furthermore, with regard to the relative error percentages and the coefficient of correlation of the input and output data, it was concluded that the method artificial neural network yields more reliable results than the statistical approach.
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The authors wish to thank the authorities in Tehran–Shomal highway project, especially Mr. Afrand whose help and support was invaluable. Also the assistance and advises of Mr. Ebrahim is appreciated.
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Torabi, S.R., Shirazi, H., Hajali, H. et al. Study of the influence of geotechnical parameters on the TBM performance in Tehran–Shomal highway project using ANN and SPSS. Arab J Geosci 6, 1215–1227 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-011-0415-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-011-0415-3