Seismic study of shallow circular tunnel in Red River sand (Vietnam)

Attention should be paid to tunnels' seismic behaviour since many of them have been damaged by earthquakes. The paper presented a seismic study of a shallow circular tunnel by physical modelling on shaking table test. A small scale tunnel model of the Hanoi pilot metro line's underground segment was placed in the middle of a rigid soil container and buried in Red River sand (Vietnam). The table was vibrated along the soil container's long wall, with a simulated seismic wave created from the 1788 Tolmezzo (Italia) accelerogram. Five testing campaigns were executed, and the model's acceleration data were studied. The uni-directional vibration created by the shaking table caused the three-directional vibration of the physical model. The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) frequency spectrum analyses were performed. The vibration characteristics of the model (i.e., frequency graph's structure, maximal acceleration, dominant frequency, strong-motion duration) in three orthogonal directions under the artificial earthquake action were compared. The obtained results proved the complicated seismic impacts on a shallow tunnel.