Load and resistance factor design coefficient calibration for tunnel design in Buenos Aires

ROLDAN, L.; SAMBATARO, L.; DANKERT, G.; BERTERO, RAUL; SANTA CRUZ, J.M.

Napoles

Congreso; World Tunnel Congress, Naples, 3 - 9 May, 2019.; 2019

A Load and Resistance Factor Design approach is intended to be used to calculatethe tunnels of the Buenos Aires Network of Regional Express Trains (RER) project.AASHTO?s Tunnel Design and Construction Guide Specifications (2017) is used as referenceand a recalibration of the load/resistance factors is proposed, to analyze the influence of thelocal ground properties and their statistical distribution. To do so, a beam and spring finiteelement model was coupled with a structural reliability software to perform a FORM analysis.From this study importance factors were obtained for the involved parameters and load/resistancefactors were calibrated for different limit state cases with an objective reliability. Finally,the RER definitive linings were analyzed using the classical Allowable Stress Design method,the latest AASHTO?s Tunnel Specification and the resulting limit state functions obtainedfrom this study. A performance comparison was carried out for the three methods.