The effect of an explosion in a tunnel on a neighboring buried structure

•We model the interaction of two tunnels when an explosion occurs within one of them.•The present approach allows to consider all the stages of the explosion process.•The effect of the second tunnel on the soil free surface response is studied.•The initial motion of the soil is predicted by the variational-difference method.•The second phase is modeled by simplified approach, based on the gravitation law.

A comprehensive approach to simulate the effects of an explosion occurring inside a buried infrastructure tunnel on the soil surface and on nearby tunnels is presented. The approach considers all the stages of the complex process: detonation of the internal explosive charge; the shock wave propagation through the air in the tunnel and its following interaction with the cavity’s lining; it then examines the soil-structure dynamic interaction, including wave propagation in the surrounding soil medium and their interaction with the nearby tunnels. The soil model takes into account both bulk and shear elastic plastic behavior, including the effect of the soil pressure on the yield strength for the stress tensor deviator. The variational-difference method is applied to solve the problem in the soil and in the lining domains. The developed approach allows studying the effect of the soil and lining properties on the soil-tunnel interaction as well as the explosion effect on a nearby tunnel behavior and on the soil surface response.