Open Access

ARTICLE

Isogeometric Analysis of Longitudinal Displacement of a Simplified Tunnel Model Based on Elastic Foundation Beam

Zhihui Xiong^*, Lei Kou, Jinjie Zhao, Hao Cui, Bo Wang

School of Water Conservancy Science and Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

* Corresponding Author: Zhihui Xiong. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Integration of Geometric Modeling and Numerical Simulation)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2023, 136(1), 803-824. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2023.024833

Received 08 June 2022; Accepted 09 September 2022; Issue published 05 January 2023

Abstract

Serious uneven settlement of the tunnel may directly cause safety problems. At this stage, the deformation of the tunnel is predicted and analyzed mainly by numerical simulation, while the commonly used finite element method (FEM) uses low-order continuous elements. Therefore, the accuracy of tunnel settlement prediction is not enough. In this paper, a method is proposed to study the vertical deformation of the tunnel by using the combination of isogeometric analysis (IGA) and Bézier extraction operator. Compared with the traditional IGA method, this method can be easily integrated into the existing FEM framework, and ensure the same accuracy. A numerical example of an elastic foundation beam subjected to uniformly distributed load and an engineering example of an equivalent elastic foundation beam of the tunnel are given. The results show that the solution of the IGA method is closer to the theoretical solution of the initial-parameter method than the FEM, and the accuracy and reliability of the proposed model are verified. Moreover, it not only provides some theoretical support for the longitudinal design of the tunnel, but also provides a new way for the application and popularization of IGA in tunnel engineering.

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