Abstract
When excavating tunnels in the clay stratum by using earth pressure balance (EPB) shields, the cutterhead is prone to clogging and may lose its ability to excavate. To investigate the clogging mechanism, a cutterhead device equipped with a driving system was developed to emulate the cutterhead behavior of the EPB shield in conditioned soils. The influences of water content, consolidation time, and soil conditioning factors on clay adhesion were evaluated and compared based on general laboratory and cutterhead model tests. The mixing test results showed that the water content influenced considerably clay adhesion. A water content interval near the liquid limit caused a decrease in the adhesion coefficient, and the change in water content was more effective than that in clay conditioning. Direct shear tests revealed that soil conditioning could reduce clay strength, and the effect was evident when the consolidation time was less than 6 h. A peeling point was observed in the adhesion curve of the clay and steel blocks. The peeling point for unconditioned clay was greater than the corresponding shear failure strength, which indicated that the clay had failed before it was detached from the steel block surface. However, contrasting results were obtained for conditioned clay. The cutterhead model test also showed that the water content had the greatest influence on clay adhesion according to the torque and thrust.
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Acknowledgements
The assistance by Huijun Kuang from Hunan Tuoxin Testing Equipment Co. Ltd. in cutterhead model test is greatly appreciated.
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This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China under grant no. U1261212.
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Writing—original draft preparation: **ng Yang. Methodology: Zhiyong Yang. Formal analysis and investigation: **aoyan Zhang. Funding acquisition: Yusheng Jiang. Resources: Gongyu Hou; **aokang Shao; Weiqiang Qi.
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Yang, X., Yang, Z., Zhang, X. et al. Experimental study on the influences of water content, consolidation time, and soil conditioning on the adhesion of clay in EPB shields. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 426 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02941-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02941-3