Could you please give me some explanations about the function of Add tunnel phase routine? I cannot find more detailed information about it.
Dear Guo Dali,
In principle, you can consider each routine a different set of applied features and settings to a tunnel slice. Each routine is applied one after the other. This can cover the case in which a tunnel slice has a set of rock bolts installed but installed every second tunnel slice.
I attach a screenshot showing what the tunnel phase routines represent in PLAXIS tunnel designer. In this example, the first routine considers excavation and activating the plates. The second routine considers excavation, activating the plates and activating the embedded beams.
In addition to these information, we have to use it in case of umbrella. Because Plaxis does not agree with the given spacing of umbrellas, so if you have a slice length of 0.8m and rock bolt spacing of 0.8m but umbrella spacing of 4.8m, Plaxis will include umbrellas at every 0.8m even you want at every 4.8m. So, to overcome this, you may use routine to apply umbrellas at every 6 steps. Of course the amount of points in the model will make it unbearable, but I don't think Plaxis took my problem as a bug, so maybe Stafanos can help.
We may have cases where rock bolt spacing is not same with excavation step. So Plaxis should consider this.
Dear Berk,
The way that the tunnel designer is creating the geometry indeed will create extra embedded beams (rock bolts, umbrella arch, etc.) that may not be activated in staged construction.
I have passed your comments to our developers about this.
Note that if the sequence of the tunnel is asynchronous to some of the components of the tunnel, you can create them outside the tunnel designer. Note that in that case, it is important to make sure that the geometry is correctly defined (snapped) so no gaps or overlap is created.
Thank you. I am very happy with Tunnel Designer, it makes creaating tunnels much easier than importing. And much easier to do sensitivity analyses. However, if I use umbrellas, it's a headache. I hope developers may improve it with time.
So plaxis 3D has sensitivity analysis? similar to the one in 2D?