Nonlinear earthquake behaviour of highway tunnels

This paper describes the Arhavi Highway Tunnel which has two tubes, its geometrical properties, finite element model, and the nonlinear earthquake behaviour under a huge ground motion considering soil-structure interaction. The Arhavi Highway Tunnel is one of the tallest tunnels constructed in the Black Sea region of Turkey as part of the Coast Road Project. The tunnel has two tubes and each of them is about 1000 m tall. In the study, the modal analyses of the tunnel considering soil-structure interaction are performed and natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained. Then, nonlinear transient analysis of the tunnel using Drucker-Prager criteria is performed applying acceleration components of 1992 Erzincan, Turkey earthquake's ground motion. In the time history analyses, Rayleigh damping coefficients are calculated using main natural frequency obtained from modal analysis. Element matrices are computed using the Gauss numerical integration technique. The Newmark method is used in the solution of the equation of motion. Because too much memory for the analyses is required, the first 7.5 s of the ground motions, which is the most effective duration, is taken into account in calculations. The displacement and stress results are observed to be the allowable level of the concrete material.