Hydro-mechanical interaction of reinforced concrete lining in hydraulic pressure tunnel

The reinforced concrete lining of hydraulic pressure tunnels tends to crack under high inner water pressure (IWP), which results in the inner water exosmosis along cracks and involves typical hydro-mechanical interaction. This study aims at the development, validation and application of an indirect-coupled method to simulate the lining cracking process. Based on the concrete damage plasticity (CDP) model, the utility routine GETVRM and the user subroutine USDFLD in the finite element code ABAQUS is employed to calculate and adjust the secondary hydraulic conductivity according to the material damage and the plastic volume strain. The friction-contact method (FCM) is introduced to track the lining-rock interface behavior. Compared with the traditional node-shared method (NSM) model, the FCM model is more feasible to simulate the lining cracking process. The number of cracks and the reinforcement stress can be significantly reduced, which matches well with the observed results in engineering practices. Moreover, the damage evolution of reinforced concrete lining can be effectively slowed down. This numerical method provides an insight into the cracking process of reinforced concrete lining in hydraulic pressure tunnels.