Reliability assessment of EPB tunnel-related settlement

A major consideration in the design of tunnels in urban areas is the prediction of the ground movements and surface settlements associated with the tunneling operations. Excessive ground movements can damage adjacent building and utilities. In this paper, a neural network model is used to predict the maximum surface settlement, based on instrumented results from three separate EPB tunneling projects in Singapore. This paper demonstrates that by coupling the trained neural network model to a spreadsheet optimization technique, the reliability assessment of the settlement serviceability limit state can be carried out using the first-order reliability method. With this method, it is possible to carry out sensitivity studies to examine the effect of the level of uncertainty of each parameter uncertainty on the probability that the serviceability limit state has been exceeded.