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-
-
Tenth International
Colloquium on
Structural and
Geotechnical Engineering
April 22-24, 2003
Ain Shams University,
Cairo, Egypt


NEURONET PREDICTION OF TUNNELING-INDUCED
SETTLEMENTS



ALI A. AHMED
1
HOSSAM E. ALI
2
SAYED M. EL-SAYED
2

SHADY M. NOUR EL-DIN
3



ABSTRACT

Recent proliferation of tunnels in urban congested areas necessitates the continual updating of
subsidence prediction techniques using settlement records of tunnel monitoring programs.
This paper concerns with characterization of the surface settlement trough associated with soft
ground tunneling through a new model based on the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The
key element of the employed paradigm is the novel combined topology of the information
processing system to cover the different sizes of the learning database. The neural network
has been trained using the monitoring and geotechnical data of many tunneling projects in
Egypt and abroad. The training database covers a wide spectrum of construction techniques,
geotechnical data and the tunnel geometrical data. The main benefit of this approach is to
avoid the computational complexities of satisfying all the constraints of constructional details,
geotechnical conditions and tunnel configurations in order to obtain a rigorous assessment of
settlements associated with tunneling. The proposed model was practiced in analyzing the
present and future status of Hydroshield tunneling in Greater Cairo.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network (ANN), tunnels, monitoring programs, settlement
trough, trough width, Gaussian distribution, Standard Penetration Test (SPT), Hydroshield,
Greater Cairo Metro, Al-Azhar Road Twin Tunnels.


1
Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo Egypt
2
Assistant Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, Ain Shams University, Cairo Egypt
3
M.Sc. Graduate Student, Ain Shams University, Cairo Egypt
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INTRODUCTION

Tunneling specifications demand preservation of the surrounding buildings and lifelines by
taking necessary measures to avert potential ground settlements. These deformations are
attributed to the ground loss at the tunnel, which trigger off a chain of movements up to
ground surface leading to the formation of subsidence troughs. Based on analysis of
observations made on several tunneling projects, Peck (1969) proposed the double-curved
settlement trough. The trough is characterized by means of a reversed Gaussian error function
curve as shown in Fig. 1. Accordingly, the settlement trough is determined by two main
parameters: the maximum surface settlement at the point above the tunnel centerline (S
max
)
and the width parameter (i) which is defined as the distance from the tunnel centerline to the
inflection point of the trough. Using Pecks settlement distribution, the spatial settlement (S)
is evaluated using the following equation:

=
2
2
max
2
exp
i
x
S S (1)

where x is the coordinate distance measured from the tunnel centerline. Settlement data
compiled from monitoring programs of soft ground tunnels around the world confirmed
Pecks postulation of Gauss-function settlement troughs (Attewell et al., 1986).





FIG. (1) Surface Settlement Profiles (after Peck, 1969)



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To date, the finite element method provides the most powerful tool to simulate tunneling
especially with the quick improvement in computer efficiency and availability of very
powerful codes (Ahmed, 1991; Esmail, 1997, and El-Sayed, 2001). Yet, complications in
developing finite element models covering the contemporary tunneling operations and
intricate model parameters encourage the use novel simplified models such as artificial neural
networks (ANNs). The objective of this paper is to introduce the ANN techniques in
prediction of the settlement troughs induced by soft ground tunneling by making use of the
monitoring data complied during the construction of tunnels.

NEURO-MODELING

The use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) in geomechanics has significantly increased in
the last decade. Moreover, their successful applications in other fields of decision-making and
in computer and electrical engineering is expected to lead to further interest and confidence in
their applications in all fields of civil engineering. The expert judgments that must routinely
be made in geotechnical engineering make it an excellent field for ANN application (Ali,
2000; Fayed, 2002).

Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was inspired by the mechanism of biological nervous
systems, such as the human brain. ANN can be defined as is a simulation of human-like
response within the computer hardware and specialized software using multiple layers of
interconnected processing elements called neurons, which are linked to their neighbors with
varying coefficients of connectivity that represent the strengths of these connections. The
analogy between the biological neural systems and Artificial Neural Networks exists only at
the physical level. However, they have less in common concerning the algorithms ruling these
two structures. Figs. 2 & 3 show the biological neurons and the artificial computer neuron.

Artificial Neural Networks made their first appearance in the 1940s in the work of McCulloch
and Pitts (1943). Nevertheless, Neural Computing has emerged as a practical alternative to
algorithmic computation only in the past few years especially after the introduction of the
backpropagation algorithm in the late 1980s. Neural networks can be used to extract patterns
and detect trends that are too complex to be noticed by either humans or other computer
techniques. A trained neural network can be thought of as an "expert" in the category of
information it has been given to analyze; this expert can answer "what if" questions when
dealing with a new situations of interest (Haykin, 1994).

Topology, Optimization and Generalization of the ANN Model

ANNs are formed by clustering of the primitive artificial neurons into layers, which are then
connected to one another. Some of the neurons interface with the external environment to
receive the inputs and other neurons provide the networks outputs. All the rest of the neurons
are included in a number of hidden layers between the input and the output layers. The
utilized paradigm is a Multi-Layer Perceptron type (MLP) comprising only one hidden layer.
Errors between the network predictions and the desired outputs are reduced iteratively using
the backpropagation algorithm (Werbos, 1974; Rumelhart et al., 1986).

The model topology is composed of two-staged ANN as shown in Fig 4. The first stage (A),
indicated by light solid arrows, is used to estimate the maximum settlement employing the
following input parameters: the diameter of tunnel, the depth of the tunnel, depth of the
groundwater table, thickness of different soil layers, and the average values of the standard
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penetration test (SPT) counted in each layers. The SPT results were selected because they
represent raw geotechnical data that indicate the soil strength and stiffness (Terzaghi and Peck,
1967). The second stage (B), indicated by bold dashed arrows, is used to estimate the trough
width from the following input variables: the tunnel depth, the excavated diameter of tunnel
and, the maximum surface settlement obtained from the first stage.


FIG. (2) Sketch of a Biological Neuron (after Tsoukalas and Uhrig, 1997)






FIG. (3) Artificial Neuron (after Tsoukalas and Uhrig, 1997)


Input
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FIG. (4) ANN Configuration
(* indicates multiple records)


*
*
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Most instrumentation programs exercise frequenter measurements of the longitudinal
maximum settlement than acquiring the transverse troughs (Murray, 1990). The difference in
the available data sizes of the maximum settlements and trough widths was the key motive to
divide the ANN model into two stages.

Optimization of ANN topology has many performance criteria (e.g. learning rate,
compactness, generalization, and noise resistance). These criteria are hard to implement
concurrently because of their complex interactions. The problem of establishing the best
architecture of the ANN has been tackled using the Genetic Algorithms (GAs). GAs are
general-purpose search algorithms based upon the principles of evolution observed in nature.
GAs combine selection, crossover, and mutation operators with the goal of finding the best
solution to a given problem (Bishop, 1995).

The introduction of GA in ANNs is implemented by introducing both structure and
parameters of the neural network as a fixed-length string which is evolved to minimize the
error between the predicted outputs and the training set. There are four stages in the genetic
search process: initialization, evaluation and selection, crossover and mutation. In the
initialization stage, populations of randomly distributed genetic structures are selected as the
starting point of the search. In the second stage, each structure is evaluated using a fitness
function. On the basis of their relative fitness values, structures in the current population are
selected for reproduction. The selected structures are recombined using crossover. A mutation
operator, which arbitrarily alters one or more components of a selected structure, provides the
means for introducing new information into the population (Nour El-Din, 2003).

It is important to ensure that the network performs well on data that is has not been trained on.
This principal is called generalization of ANN. The standard method of ensuring good
generalization is to divide the training data into multiple data sets; namely, the training,
testing (cross-validation), and validation data sets. The ANN is as good as the training data, so
increasing the size of the training data enhances the performance of the ANN. The testing
(cross-validation) data set is used to determine when the network has been trained as
maximum as possible without over-training. If the network is starting to over-train on the data,
the cross-validation performance will begin to degrade. For a true test of the performance of
the network, the validation set is used. It provides a true indication of how the network will
perform on new data. The network is optimal when the error in the validation set is at its
minimum position (Patterson, 1996).


Databases of Tunneling-induced Settlements

The databases were collected from measured tunneling-induced surface settlements and the
corresponding geotechnical information. The records cover a wide range of variation in
geotechnical data and the tunnel geometrical data (depth and diameter) are detailed in Table 1.
The considered cases comprise the following tunneling techniques: Hydroshield Tunneling
(Greater Cairo Metro, Al-Azhar Road Tunnels and El-Salam Syphon), Earth Pressure Balance
Shield (Alexandria Wastewater Tunnel), Compressed Air Shield (Cairo Wastewater Tunnel)
and Open Face Shield (Alberta Experimental Tunnels). Additionally, the databases include
tunnel diameters ranging between 2.5 and 9.45m with depth ranging between 5 and 25m. The
geotechnical conditions vary substantially between soft alluvial deposits with shallow
groundwater depths for Cairo projects, marine geological deposits of soil and limestone for
Alexandria waste water projects, and glacial till for Alberta tunnels.
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It should be noted that the width parameter (i) cannot be achieved directly from the measured
settlements. Nonlinear Newton-Raphson regression analysis (Chapra and Canale, 1990) was
performed on the settlement measurements in order to obtain the trough width parameter (i)
assuming Gauss settlement distribution (Nour El-Din, 2003).

The database was randomly divided into three subsets: training data set (50% of the data),
testing data set (25% of the data) and validation data set (25% of the data) in order to train the
ANN and benchmark its performance.

TABLE (1) Database of the Tunneling Projects Used to Develop the ANN
Project and Location
(Reference)
Depth to
springline
(m)
Tunnel
Diameter
(m)
No. of
Cases
(A*)/(B**)
Greater Cairo Metro Egypt
(Hamza Associates, 1995 & 1997)
13.4-25 9.45 17/2
North Tunnel Al-Azhar Road
Tunnels Egypt
(Campenon Bernard-SGE, 1999)
19.5-23 9.45 2/1
Alberta Experimental Tunnels
Canada
(El-Nahhas, 1980)
27& 11.7 2.56 & 6.2 2/2
Alexandria Wastewater Tunnel
Egypt
(Kotait, 2001)
14 2.81 1/1
Spinal Tunnel Cairo Wastewater
Tunnel Egypt
(El-Nahhas et al., 1990)
15.6 5.15 1/1
First Tunnel Al-Salam Syphon
Egypt
(Esmail, 1997)
24 6.6 1/1
Soft Soil Tunnels
(after Lee et al., 1999)
5 2.5 0/7
* Used in stage (A)
** Used in stage (B)


Model Validation

The most important criterion that has to be fulfilled in developing successful ANN is to attain
a good performance in the validation set which was previously unseen by the model. The
coefficient of correlation (R
2
), as defined by Chapra and Canale (1990), is considered as the
key factor to evaluate the performance of analytical models. The value of R
2
generally ranges
between zero and one. The model behavior can be categorized according to the value of (R
2
)
as shown in Table 2.

Tables 3 and 4 show that the correlation between the validation set and ANN results are
generally less the correlation between the training or testing sets and the outputs of the ANN.
However, the correlation observed between all data sets and ANN can be classified as
strong.

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The plots of the measured and predicted settlements for all data sets are shown in Figs 5 and 6.
The results indicate that the model performs well in obtaining the characteristics of the
Gaussian settlement distribution.



TABLE (2) Performance Criterion (Chapra and Canale, 1990)
Category Value of R
2

Strong correlation More than 0.8
Medium correlation Between 0.2 and 0.8
Weak correlation Less than 0.2

TABLE (3) Correlation Coefficient for Stage (A); Estimation of Maximum Settlement.
Data set Value of R
2

All data 0.92
Training data 0.95
Testing data 0.98
Validation data 0.80

TABLE (4) Correlation Coefficient for Stage (B); Prediction of Trough Width.
Data set Value of R
2

All data 0.97
Training data 0.99
Testing data 0.99
Validation data 0.84


FIG. (5) Results of Stage (A)
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FIG. (6) Results of Stage (B)



PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS OF HYDROSHIED TUNNELING IN GREATER CAIRO

As Cairo began its rapid population explosion, the need for new mass transportation systems
was inevitable. The National Tunneling Authority (NAT) promoted two underground
solutions. The first solution was Greater Cairo Metro railway tunnel and the second solution
was Al-Azhar Road Twin Tunnels.

Greater Cairo Metro comprises a regional line and two urban lines as shown in Fig. 7. The
regional line was completed in 1989 and was the first subway metro line in Africa and the
Middle East. It is 42.5 km long from El-Marg at the North of Cairo to Helwan at the South
with about 4.5 km underground part through downtown area using cut-and-cover technique.
Line 2 extends from Shubra El-Kheima to Giza suburban areas connecting the east and west
banks of the Nile (Madkour et al., 1999). Line 3 is expected to connect Imbaba to Cairo
Airport through Cairo downtown and Heliopolis district.

The geology of Cairo has been outlined by Shata (1988). He concluded that Cairo is underlain
by tertiary sedimentary rocks and quaternary soils, both underlain by older basement rocks.
Tunnels that were driven through Cairo lie totally within the geomorphic unit known as the
young alluvial plain that represents the majority of the lowland portion of the Nile Valley in
the Cairo area. The Nile River deposits governed the subsurface and groundwater conditions.
The Pleistocene age sediments in the alluvial plain are generally fairly consistent with depth,
but vary somewhat laterally as a result of the long history of river meanders, and alternate
cycles of sedimentation and erosion before the construction of Aswan High Dam in Upper
Egypt in the 1960's. These sediments are approximately 60-90 meters thick in the Cairo area.

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Tunnels constructed in Greater Cairo are usually characterized by excavation through non-
plastic permeable deposits usually sand with a variable content of silt as shown in Fig. 8. Such
geological formations limit the tunnel construction methods to pressurized full face tunneling
machines. Two identical Herrenknecht BS TBMs (Hydroshields) of 9.45m diameter were
selected to drive the tunnel in Line 2. The details of the employed TBM are shown in Fig 9.
One of the these TBMs was also used to drive AL-Azhar north and south tunnels to connect
Salah Salem Road to Opera Square as shown in Fig 10.



FIG. (7) Greater Cairo Metro Network (after Madkour et al., 1999)



FIG. (8) Gradation of the Excavated Deposits in Line 2 of Greater Cairo Metro
(after Richards et al, 1997)

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FIG. (9) Hydroshield Details (after El-Nahhas, 1999)







FIG. (10) Layout of Al-Azhar Road Tunnels
(after Ramond and Guillien 1999)


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The ANN model was used to conduct a parametric analysis to study the settlement associated
with tunneling through sand deposits with the characteristic SPT values. The diameter of the
tunnel is set equal to the diameter of the Hydroshields used in driving Line 2 - Greater Cairo
Metro and Al-Azhar Road Tunnels (i.e. 9.45m). Maximum settlements were calculated for
various values of SPT and tunnel depth. Fig 11 shows the attenuation relation of the
maximum settlement by increasing the tunnel depth. The analysis shows that loose sand tends
to have approximately constant value of maximum settlement regardless of the tunnel depth
while dense sand has much pronounced attenuation trend with depth.

The available monitoring data concerning Line 2 Greater Cairo Metro and Al-Azhar Road
Tunnels are also marked in Fig 11. Most of the observed data tend to be located in the zone
between (SPT=30) curve and (SPT=50) curve. This remark is justified by the fact that most of
the considered monitoring data of Greater Cairo Metro and Al-Azhar Tunnels lies in dense
granular deposits.




FIG. (11) Maximum Settlement Attenuation with Depth


Another parametric study was conducted to relate the width parameter of the trough (i) to the
tunnel depth for various values of maximum settlement. The results of the analysis are shown
in Fig 12. Based on the data shown in Fig 5, two levels of maximum settlement were chosen
to express the tunneling status in Greater Cairo Metro (S
max
=16mm) and Al-Azhar Road
Tunnels (S
max
10mm). Fig 12 also shows the expected trough width limits according to
Schmidt (1969) and the available monitoring data. The data conforms very well to the ANN
curves but have a poor correlation with Schmidt bounds. This may be attributed to the
complex relation of soil strength and stiffness versus depth that was unaccounted in Schmidts
fitting method.

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FIG. (12) Variation of Width Parameter (i) with Springline Depth


PREDICTION OF SETTLEMENTS ASSOCIATED WITH HYDROSHIELD
TUNNELING IN GREATER CAIRO METRO - LINE 3

A substantial part of Greater Cairo Metro - Line 3 is anticipated to have geological and
constructional conditions similar to Line 2. Using the results of the ANN parametric analysis
shown in Figs. 11 and 12, the maximum settlement is expected to range between 4mm and
15mm and the trough width is expected to range between 4m and 10m for dense sand
tunneling under shallow groundwater table. Fig. 13 shows the expected settlement envelope
for Line 3 based on the previous values.


FIG. (13) Probable Settlement Envelope for Greater Cairo Metro - Line 3
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SUMMAY AND CONCLUSION

In the present study, a back-propagated supervised ANN model enhanced by the evolution
capabilities of GA was employed to predict the settlement characteristics associated with
tunneling. A novel combined topology was implemented due to the different data sizes of the
maximum settlement and trough width databases.

Many projects in Egypt and abroad were utilized to train, test and validate the proposed model.
The database used in model training covers a wide spectrum of geological conditions,
configurations and construction techniques. The model shows good results compared with
settlement observed during construction especially for pressurized tunneling techniques.

A parametric analysis was conducted using the ANN-based technique to reveal the
geotechnical and geometric factors affecting application of the Hydroshield technique in
Greater Cairo. The analysis shows that depth of the tunnel affects profoundly the settlement
characteristics in dense deposits but have less influence in loose deposits. It was also shown
that the width factor of the trough (i) does not necessarily increase with the increase of the
tunnel depth.

The proposed ANN model was used to predict the future tunneling-induced settlements for
Line 3 Greater Cairo Metro in dense sand deposits under shallow groundwater table and it
was found that the probable maximum settlement is 15 mm and trough may extend to about
30m depending on the tunnel depth.

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