2-D analysis of circular tunnel against earthquake loading

The use of underground structures such as tunnel for subways, highways, material storage, and sewage and water transport is increasing in developed countries. The safety of these facilities during operation in areas with seismic activities such as in Japan, Taiwan and Turkey in recent earthquakes has been questioned. Dynamic effects on these structures are in the form of deformations that they experience during earthquakes. In this paper, first latest methods on the subject are reviewed and then the interaction between the ground and tunnel lining during earthquake excitation is investigated by a finite difference computer program (CA2). Analysis show that a good agreement between analytical closed form and numerical solutions exist. According to the results obtained in this study some practical suggestion for using closed form solution are also given.