Recent trends in monitoring tunnelling-induced displacements on structures.

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Abstract

Tunnel construction in built environment requires careful control of induced displacements though suitable and reliable monitoring techniques (Mair, 2008). In the last decade, innovative monitoring systems have created wide interest and they have been progressively applied in tunnel projects in addition to conventional sensing, either because they permit real-time control of induced strain of structures (e.g. fibre optics) or because they provide cost-effective additional information (e.g. laser scanning), or since they allow for historical movements trends (e.g. InSAR). Nonetheless, conventional monitoring techniques have been not discontinued and their resolution, power demand and communication potential (e.g. wireless devices) has largely improved in recent years (Ma et al., 2021). Nowadays monitoring tunnel construction provides a large volume of data to be processed in order to alert of potential risk and trigger immediate corrective actions (Meyer et al., 2013; Gonzalez-Arteaga et al., 2020). Furthermore, gathered data can be used as input to existing digital twins of the construction process, thus expanding their potential to the whole tunnel life-cycle (Boje et al., 2020; Pan & Zhang, 2021). Starting from the state-of-art of monitoring displacement induced on buildings by tunnel construction, this lecture explores the current trends in developments of innovative sensors and techniques.

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Short curriculum

Emilio Bilotta is associate professor in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Napoli Federico II (Italy). His main research interests concern tunnelling in urban areas, tunnels under seismic actions and ground improvement for seismic mitigation. He is author of more than 150 papers in in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He is member of the Technical Committees TC 104 (Physical Modelling in Geotechnics) and TC 219 (System Performance of Geotechnical Structures) of the ISSMGE and editor of the Handbook on Tunnels and Underground Works.  He is editorial board member of the journal of the Italian geotechnical society Rivista Italiana di Geotecnica and of the international journals Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology and Underground Space. He is actively involved in technology transfer as founder of a spin-off for innovative solutions in ground improvement and geotechnical engineering (Smart-G).