Reduction in Lateral Displacement of Cohesionless Soil at Box Tunnel Face Using Nails in Overburden

The construction of shallow box tunnel underpass below rail/road traffic using jack pushing has become a quite common technique these days to create an uninterrupted flow of traffic in metropolitan cities. During the driving of shallow box tunnel underpass, the overburden cohesionless soil experiences large stresses and excessive lateral displacements at the box tunnel face, which sometime causes an accident leading to loss of lives. In order to overcome this problem, a laboratory model study has been conducted. A steel tank of size 450 mm × 300 mm × 300 mm, filled with cohesionless soil was used, in which a square steel box tunnel of size 34 mm × 34 mm (inner) with 1 mm wall thickness was moved through jacks. This tunnel was slowly pushed into the soil mass with the help of jack. Three vertical offsets from top of soil surface as well as three horizontal offsets from center of loading. To restrict the excessive lateral displacement, the overburden soil above the box tunnel was reinforced with 8 mm diameter tor steel nails prior to pushing of box tunnel. The lateral displacement of soil at tunnel face was found reduced from 6.92 mm in case of ‘without nailed’ to 0.23 mm in case of ‘with nailed’ overburden soil. Further, there was also a gain in load carrying capacity of soil in case of reinforced overburden soil. The study shows that if, overburden soil is reinforced with nails prior to the driving of box tunnel, the chances of collapse or lateral displacement at box tunnel face soil can be minimized for construction of shallow underpass.