Application of Improved Single-Hole Superposition Theory in Nonequal Cross-Section Tunnel Intersection

With the excavation towards the intersecting tunnels’ direction, the impact on the surrounding rock stress between the two tunnels will gradually decrease, but how it decreased is not clear. At present, engineers often directly superimpose the stress in the triangular area of the crossing tunnel when calculating the stress in this area (single-hole superposition theory). The theory is also used as the main theory to consider the surrounding rock stress for support which is difficult to explain the situation of nonuniform cross-section centers not in the same plane. The safety level of support is mainly determined by construction experience which is unable to determine how to adjust the support level with the increase in the horizontal distance of intersecting tunnel, causing the insufficient utilization of materials. This paper derives theoretically the stress calculation of the triangular area of circular cross tunnels with different cross sections and analyzes the surrounding rock stress law of the intersecting tunnels triangular area from different cross-section dimensions (the difference in diameter between the two tunnels is twice, 3 times, and 4 times) and different intersection angles. And the results show that, compared with the case of equal tunnel diameters, the stress influence area of the surrounding rock in the triangle area mainly expands to the side of the small section with the increase of the cross-section difference of the intersecting tunnels; the dangerous area of the surrounding rock in the triangle area moves vertically to the small section; the safest condition is the two tunnels with 90° intersecting angle. The theoretical calculation model of this paper is verified by the previous research results.

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