Abstract

Domestic masonry railroad tunnel lining consists of red bricks or granite stone blocks and mortar. It is necessary to evaluate the behaviour of the masonry tunnel lining during an earthquake because the lining was constructed without the consideration of seismic loads. In this study, a methodology to evaluate the seismic resistant capacity of masonry tunnel linings was proposed, i.e. material property evaluation and seismic analysis technique. The red brick masonry tunnel lining is arrayed with multi-layers composed of 3 to 5 bricks depending on ground conditions and each brick is attached with mortar. Equivalent property concept was adopted to consider the stiffness difference among the red brick material itself and joints between bricks. Response spectrum analysis was performed by considering ground-structure interactions. A parametric study was performed to figure out the effect of relative stiffness between the lining and rock mass on the seismic behavior. A resonable countermeasure to minimize the earthquake-induced damage was also proposed.