Nonlinear behaviors of submerged floating tunnels under seismic excitation

The Submerged Floating Tunnels are one new type of infrastructure, representing a challenge in structural engineering, both on the theoretical and operational fields. In this paper, a 3D finite element analysis procedure is developed accounting for material and geometrical nonlinearities, soil-structure interaction and multiple-support seismic excitation. A comparison between dynamic response in case of elastic and inelastic material behavior of the anchor bars is given, which shows the beneficial effect of this source of energy dissipation. Furthermore, the effects of introducing dissipation devices for restraining the tunnel axial motion have been investigated as well. Besides this, the earthquake transmission through water (seaquake) is here introduced as an additional hydrodynamic loading on the tunnel. The ensuing increase of loading in the tunnel indicates that a significant role is played by this loading source and highlights the need of further investigations on seaquake effects. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.