Singapore Case Histories on Performance of Piles Subjected to Tunnelling-Induced Soil Movement

Abstract

In land scarce Singapore, the development of a comprehensive and efficient underground public transport system is the key to a sustainable transport system. This has resulted in many tunnels being built in densely urbanized areas and at close proximity to buildings and infrastructures. The tunnelling effects on these adjacent structures can be detrimental as problems such as pile settlement and passive loading on the piles could arise. The construction of large scale infrastructure projects such as Circle Line has opened up enormous scope for tunnelling and underground works in Singapore, which offers a great opportunity to study the response of piles to tunnelling. Two case histories are presented and involved the monitoring of 200 buildings located within the influence of tunneling along Circle Line (CCL) 3, 4 and 5. More than 3600 building settlement markers were analyzed and the resulting pile head settlements due to tunnelling were compared with surrounding ground surface movements. The results of the full-scale instrumented piles subjected to the effects of twin tunnel construction on adjacent groups of bored cast in-situ piles are also discussed.