Proposed Bases for Collecting Experiences for Urban Tunneling Design

Abstract

The late progresses _on tunnel excavation and support techniques enable us to consider their construction as technically feasible under any subsoil conditions:  limitations will depend solely on costs. The available data. increasing exponentially on tunnel construction have been interpreted according to the empirical prescriptions established by our leaders in the profession. Nonetheless. those prescriptions. very useful to designers by that time constitute nowadays an obstacle to a scientific based analysis.  This paper tries consider the problems related to tunnel construction under the concepts of the modern Soil Mechanics. Analytical procedures are then proposed: although they may be viewed more as working hipothesis rather than perfect analytical solutions. it is believed that they may be useful in establishing rational bases for collecting and digesting data related to tunneling.