Urban Tunneling in Collapsible Soils

Urban development and the need for new facilities have led to an increase in the use of urban utilities. These various utilities are generally located under the public highway. Therefore, underground space is limited by the width of the public highway. Because of the increase in the urban utilities, the need for maintenance of these utilities and the lake of space, the underground is now very often saturated. In addition, trench digging due to work on existing networks or on the addition of a new network generates much traffic interruption. To solve this problem an urban utilities tunnel can be used. However the urban utilities tunnel is expensive compared to classical solutions. Therefore, to promote the urban utilities tunnel in Kerman, a research project was created. One of its goals is to develop a multi-criteria method integrating the following criteria: safety, sustainable development, economy, maintenance, development facilities, …. Conditions in arid and semi-arid climates favor the formation of the most problematic collapsible soils. One result of urbanization in arid regions is an increase in soil moisture content. Therefore the impact of developmentinduced changes in surface and groundwater regimes on the engineering performance of moisture sensitive arid soils, including collapsible soils, becomes a critical issue for continued suitable population expansion into arid regions. This paper details both problems and suggests some ways for tunneling in collapsible soils, also studies feasibility of the Kerman Metro for case study.

Keywords:

Urban tunnel , Collapsible soils , Concrete lining , Shield method , Kerman