Ka-Hyun Park/Young-Hoon Jung/Seongmin Kim
International Journal of Railway, vol. 11, no. 2, pp.45-49, 2018

Abstract : Understanding the formation of soil arch in the ground subjected to active trapdoor condition is very important for predicting load redistribution in tunnels or piled embankments. Soil arching in the trapdoor problem was investigated via the discrete element simulation. In the simulation, mono-sized spheres were generated to build a hexagonal lattice structure. There exists the surface of sliding which rises from the edge of the trapdoor. The surface of separation is close to the failure surface in the Rankine’s passive zone with the lateral shortening described by Terzaghi. The results of the simulations showed that different frictional coefficients can affect the angle slope of the surface of sliding, especially for the portion approaching the top surface of the particle assembly.

Keyword : Soil arching, Trapdoor, Load redistribution, Discrete element analysis