Abstract

This study focused on shielding through inflatable structure in the event of suddenwater inflow into the submerged floating tunnels. Currently, there is a lack of measuresto deal with unexpected water in tunnels in Korea. Although water treatment facilitiessuch as waterproofing and floodgates in tunnels are installed, there are limitations tothe sudden inflow of large amounts of seawater or underground water. Also, floodgatescannot respond quickly to sudden damage due to slow blocking time. Accordingly, astudy was conducted on the shielding rate and axial movement distance for inflatablestructure. The results of the reduced model experiment confirmed that the number ofinflatable structure and internal pneumatic pressure influence on the shielding rate. Asthe number of inflatable structure increased from one to two, the shielding rateincreased by about 35 up to 40 percent. It was also confirmed that the shielding rateincreased by about 4 percent as the internal pneumatic pressure increased from 0.2 barto 0.3 bar. If we verify and further develop the results identified in this study througha real-size experiment, it will be able to be used as an effective waterproof measure forsudden water inflow into the undersea tunnels or underwater tunnels.