Analysis of Soil Behavior in Earth Pressure Balanced Shield Machine

摘要

For the design and development of earth pressure balanced shield machines, it is very important to estimate the behavior of soil in the chamber. In this paper, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has tried to apply DEM (Distinct Element Method) which is able to analyse the dynamic and macroscopic behavior of non-continuous matter, to this problem. As a result, MHI has confirmed the suitability of DEM and estimated the effects of the shield size, the soil discharge conditions, mixing bars, etc.