Field Observation of Tide-Induced Loading Upon Undersea Tunnel

Many shallow undersea tunnels have been built to circulate the cooling water for the thermal or nuclear power stations in recent years. In current study, a field monitoring of tide-influenced earth pressure on the tunnel was carried out by using the pad type pressure transducers. The variation of tidal level was also recorded carefully. The measured results of earth pressures and the tidal height were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. It can be found that there is a linear relation between the variation of load and tidal height. The computed values of the loadings based on tunnel pressure theory are almost the same with measurements.