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  Insight into Modelling Techniques for t he Analysis of Masonry Tunnels

  There are numerous historical masonry tunnels around the world which are still operational and are critical for transportation infrastructure. United Kingdom has over 630 masonry tunnels, mostly built in the Victorian era (late 19th century), stretching over 335km forming a part of the Network Rail infrastructure in addition to assets operated by other owners. There is a need to devise an effective methodology for safe and a cost-effective analysis to determine the structural capacity of the masonry tunnel lining when undertaking maintenance and upgrades of these assets. This paper presents insight into the state-of-the-art in modelling and analysis of masonry tunnels and highlights some complexities of current analysis methods. An alternative simplified numerical modelling technique based on using plate elements is proposed along with basic structural theory to determine the capacity utilisation of masonry tunnels. The proposed numerical methodology is applied to an experimental model from published literature. It is shown that the numerical results from proposed method align well with experimental data. The proposed method provides a simpler, practical and less resource intensive alternative for determining the masonry tunnel lining capacity utilizations. Sensitivity studies have been carried out to investigate key factors influencing the behaviour of masonry tunnels.

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