Adaptability of earth pressure balance shield tunneling in coastal complex formations: a new evaluation method

It is difficult to tunnel in the coastal region of complex formations due to the lack of research into the adaptability of shield tunneling. A new method based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach was proposed to evaluate the adaptability of shield tunneling. Furthermore, an improved genetic algorithm (IGA) was introduced to calculate the weight of the index, which overcomes the defect of the AHP in terms of consistency testing. The evaluation model of adaptability was established based on the comprehensive analysis of the factors influencing adaptability in coastal complex formations. A case study on the adaptability evaluation of the Peng-Cai shield zone of Xiamen Metro was introduced to verify the application of the proposed method. The results indicated that the evaluation result accords with engineering practice and the proposed method can be used to evaluate the adaptability of shield tunneling.