Abstract

Power cable tunnels is one of the underground structures meant for electricity transmission and are constructed using shield TBM method when transitting across urban and subsea regions. With the increasing shaft depth for tunnels excavation when the shield TBM excavated the rock mass, the review of selecting closed-type shield TBM in rocks becomes necessary. A simplified shield TBM design method is also necessary based on conventional geotechnical survey results. In this respect, design method and related design program are developed based on combined results of full-scale tests, considerable amount of accumulated TBM data, and numerical simulation results. In order to validate the program results, excavation data of a completed power cable tunnel project are utilized. Thrust force, torque, and power of shield TBM specification are validated using Kernel density concept which estimates the population data. The robustness of design expertise is established through this research which will help in stable provision of electricity supply.