AUTCON-01470; No of Pages 10

Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx

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Automation in Construction
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/autcon

Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro

tunnel project
Ling Ma a, Hanbin Luo a,, Huarong Chen b
a
Hubei Key Laboratory of Control Structure, Huazhong University of Science & Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China
b
The Administrative Center for China's Agenda21, Beijing, 100038, Beijing, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Lack of complete information is the major factor causing accidents on metro tunnel projects. Safety risk con-
Accepted 16 October 2012 trol requires a comprehensive analysis of instrumentation data integrated with other safety related data.
Available online xxxx Based on a multidimensional data model, a safety-oriented geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse
is established to integrate all the data from heterogeneous data sources, not only for quick retrieval of infor-
Keywords:
mation on site, but also for further analysis. As one of the most important safety indicators, ground settlement
Data warehouse
Tunneling
is analyzed to take advantage of the data warehouse. A double Gaussian model is proposed to represent the
Safety risk settlement trough over twin tunnels. Moreover, a revised trough width parameter is proposed to represent
Multidimensional data the scope of safety risk areas. The ground loss is found to grow in a pattern that can be represented by a
Ground settlement logistic curve. The rst derivative of ground loss is applied to represent the evolution of safety risk.
Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
China is now enjoying a boom in metro construction. However, for
most of the cities, there is no previous experience in the construction
of metro tunnels. Some serious failures in tunnel construction have
resulted in fatalities and major property damage. Most of the failures
are attributed to inadequacies in the management of geotechnical
risks. Consequently, safety management especially for geotechnical
risk control has become one of the major issues in the metro tunnel
projects.
During a tunnel project, appropriate geotechnical instrumentation
should be installed to monitor the critical parameters required for
safety risk control. These include ground settlement, convergence
of the tunnel, displacements of adjacent facilities caused by the con-
struction works, etc. Such processes generate large amounts of data.
Additionally, in order to make a more comprehensive analysis, safety
management decision making should combine the daily data collec-
tion with other relevant information that is scattered among multiple,
dispersed and fragmented data sources. These may include construc-
tion drawings, geological reports, etc.
As a result, it is vital to store all the data in a standard format in
order to facilitate the retrieval of valued information on site and pro-
vide contextual meanings for the instrumentation data. This also
helps to avoid data loss and to accumulate experience for further
research. Kim et al. [1] have concluded that the instrumentation
data should be the best text book to evaluate the interaction be-
tween tunneling and ground settlement which is one of the most im-
portant safety indicators.
Suwansawat [12] developed an Earth Pressure Balance (EPB)
tunneling database which contained all shield operational records, in-
strumentation data and geological information. It was used to identify
factors which had an impact on ground settlement and showed the
correlations among these factors. The system was established by
implementing an entity-relationship (ER) data model. However,
Corral et al. proved that the dimensional model, commonly used in
data warehouse (DW), was much easily understood than the ER
model [5]. DW was more exible in information retrieval, and it
could easily integrate various perspectives in data analysis. As a result,
one could reduce reliance on IT professionals for data manipulation.
In this paper, a safety-oriented geotechnical instrumentation data
warehouse is built to facilitate the data analysis process for safety
decisions. Some applications of DW in civil engineering are reviewed
in Section 2. The multidimensional data model of the proposed DW
is discussed in Section 3. The benet of implementing the DW is dem-
onstrated through a multidimensional analysis of ground settlement
in Section 4. Finally, the ndings of this study are summarized in
Section 5.

2. DW in civil engineering

Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 27 87557824; fax: +86 27 87558171. Data warehouse (DW) is a subject-oriented, integrated, nonvola-
E-mail address: lhblhb1963@vip.sina.com (H. Luo). tile, and time-variant collection of data in support of management

0926-5805/$ see front matter. Crown Copyright 2012 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009

Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
Automation in Construction (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009
2 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx

decisions [19]. It supports information processing by providing a solid

platform of consolidated and historical data. Many researchers have
implemented this superior tool in the eld of civil engineering.
Chau et al. [7] developed a Construction Management Decision
Support System (CMDSS) as a prototype DW integrated information
management system. The CMDSS was designed to separate the anal-
ysis database from the operational database, and use conceptual mul-
tidimensional data models for dynamic data presentation. As an
example, a typical material inventory application was proposed to fa-
cilitate inventory decision making.
Ahmad et al. [3] applied DW technology to a prototype decision
support system (DSS) to select an optimal residential housing site.
The methodology and data models of the prototype were illustrated
in detail. It was concluded that DW, if well incorporated with other
systems, could create powerful analytical tools to support decision
making in the selection of construction sites.
Ma et al. [21] explored the utilization of electronic documents
by means of DW. Based on the characteristics of construction docu-
ments, a prototype system called EXPLYZER was developed, which
Fig. 1. Part of the soil proles of Wuhan Metro Tunnel.
could extract useful information from accumulated electronic project
documents. Then, a case study of payment analysis was carried out
for a construction project. Finally, the applicability of EXPLYZER was
discussed. 3.1.1. Data collection
Rujirayanyong and Shi [18] presented a Project-oriented DW The metro project is divided into dozens of construction sections
(PDW) for contractors' company-level data facility, providing a robust and involves a large number of participants including designers, con-
tool for collecting, storing, and utilizing historical construction project tractors, surveyors and resident engineers. They produce large amount
data. The quality data available in the PDW could provide useful in- of fundamental and specic data for metro construction and are autho-
formation for conducting in-depth business analyses or data mining rized to upload the data to the online database in the form of electronic
studies. documents. The documents include drawings and geological reports of
Moon et al. [16] developed a Cost Data Management System the designers, construction schedules from contractors, instrumenta-
(CDMS) in a DW environment to improve the effectiveness of utilizing tion and installation data from surveyors and inspection reports from
historical cost data. A probability model was established to analyze the resident engineers.
DW. The CDMS showed that the DW could help people understand the
uncertainties in construction cost estimation, and provide a method
3.1.2. Data extraction
for more reliable construction cost budget planning.
The construction drawings and some textual reports are classied
Tseng et al. [15] proposed an information model and a system
as unstructured data, which does not have a pre-dened data model.
based on a spatiotemporal DW to help public road authorities lessen
Therefore some implied details are difcult to identify by the comput-
trafc disruptions and increase the pavement lifespan and quality. It
er programs automatically. The valuable information involved in these
showed that the proposed spatiotemporal DW was benecial to facil-
materials must be extracted and represented in a structured form.
itating the utility coordination process between public road authori-
Consider a typical soil prole which was uploaded with the geolog-
ties and utility owners.
ical report, as shown in Fig. 1. The borings (labeled with Jz-5 and K-62)
The above-mentioned practical applications demonstrate the po-
were drilled one by one along the tunnel alignment to explore the
tential of DW to provide exible and efcient analysis on construction
geological conditions in the tunnel route. The most important infor-
projects data. Likewise, safety risk control in metro tunnel project also
mation is the thickness of each soil layer depicted in this drawing.
requires a comprehensive evaluation of data from diverse sources.
However, computers may not be able to recognize these valuable de-
Consequently, a safety-oriented DW was established as a superior
tails. Also electronic drawings increase the difculty of information re-
data analysis platform in a real life tunnel project.
trieval. Consequently, the information involved in the soil proles is
manually extracted and uploaded to the online database. The entity-
3. Instrumentation DW for Wuhan Metro Tunnel Project relationship (ER) model of this part of data is shown in Fig. 2.

Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province by the Yangtze River in 3.1.3. Data transformation
China, has approximately 8 million inhabitants. Its metro network Different participants might have different naming conventions
has been scheduled to include 9 urban lines, 3 intercity lines and 309 and measurement units in their reports. Therefore, all data had to be
stations, with a total length of about 540 km and a total construction in-
vestment of about 300 billion Yuan. The rst 28.9 km line (27 stations),
an elevated metro, has been in operation. Now, there are three lines (all
underground) under construction simultaneously. Faced with the great
pressure of safety management in metro construction, Wuhan Metro ProspectingBoreholes SoilProfile
Group Co., Ltd decided to implement the proposed safety-oriented DW. SoilType
ID ID
Name 1:N ProspetingID N:1 ID
3.1. Data acquisition process Chainage SoilID Name
GroundELevation Thinckness Characteristic
The proposed DW executed a recursive collection, extraction and SiteID Elevation
transformation process for data acquisition by applying a web-based
data management system. Fig. 2. ER model for soil proles.

Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
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 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx
Fig. 3. Part of the instrumentation scheme in Wuhan Metro Tunnel Project.
transformed to a naming standard and standard measurement units to
maintain consistency.
All three data acquisition processes are executed on the ER model,
which lays the foundation for the database management system. It is
a data sharing platform for all participants, and the proposed DW sits
on top of it. The DW design is based on a multidimensional data
model which is superior to an ER model in data analysis.
3.2. Multidimensional modeling of the DW
A multidimensional data model is specically designed to store
data in a way that emphasizes users' understandability and facilitates
superior data presentation. It is composed of fact tables and dimen-
sion tables.
3.2.1. Fact tables
Fact tables store physical information to describe a factual event.
In this metro tunnel project, the instrumentation data is considered
in the safety diagnosis of the site and is a good reference for safety de-
cisions. Therefore, all the instrumentation data including the ground
settlement, displacement of the tunnel crown, convergence of the
tunnel, settlement of the adjacent facilities, etc. are stored as factual
data in different fact tables.
3.2.2. Dimension tables
Dimension tables provide context and meanings for the factual data
(i.e. instrumentation data in the proposed model) to facilitate the explo-
ration of data from multiple perspectives. For example, there are at least
two important descriptive dimensions for ground settlement which is
the most important instrumentation type:
Table 1
Relevant factors of ground settlement considered in recent research works.
Resent research Tunnel geometry
Tunnel depth Tunnel
diameter
Santos and Celestino [10]
Neaupane and Adhikari [6]
Suwansawat and Einstein [13]
Kim et al. [1]
Shi et al. [4]
Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
Automation in Construction (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009
3
First, it is obvious that a temporal dimension can be implemented
to explore the time dependent properties of ground settlement, since
the ground settlement is measured during the construction process.
Second, a spatial dimension can be applied to depict the distribution
of ground settlement. The settlement markers are installed in arrays on
the ground surface (a typical instrumentation scheme is shown in
Fig. 3). Each array depicts the settlement prole (often referred to as
the settlement trough) of its located cross section. Consequently, group-
ing the markers by array is adopted as the grouping manner in spatial
dimension (i.e.) to evaluate the distribution of ground settlement.
Third and nally, besides the spatio-temporal dimensions, there
remain some context dimensions to evaluate the relevant factors of
ground settlement. According to the recent evaluations on the rele-
vant factors of ground settlement (as is shown in Table 1), tunnel ge-
ometry and hydro-geological conditions are taken as two context
dimensions in the DW.
Part of the proposed multidimensional data model of ground set-
tlement is shown in Fig. 4. The primary difference between ER model
in database (as shown in Fig. 2) and multidimensional model in DW
is that while the former is designed and optimized to record, the latter
has to be designed and optimized to respond to analysis. The table
structures in DW are simpler, standardized, and denormalized to re-
duce the linkages between tables and the corresponding complexity
of queries. Consequently, the DW drastically reduces the cost-per-
analysis and is more efcient than application database.
4. Implementation of the proposed DW
The most important benet of the proposed DW is that it facili-
tates the analysis of safety indicators to extract potential and useful
patterns from large amounts of data. Ground settlement is one of
the most important safety indicators in the proposed DW, because
Hydro-geological conditions
Geology at Geology at Groundwater Ground water
tunnel crown tunnel invert state level (m)
4 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx

DimCrossSection

PK CrossSectionKey

Mileage
......

S2

FactSettlement
DimMarkerOwner DimGeology S1
PK SettlementKey
PK MarkerOwnerKey PK GeologyKey
Tunnel centerline
DailySettlement
MarkerOwner Groundwater
CumSettlement
...... ......
Level
FK1 DateKey Overall settlement trough
DimMarker FK2 MarkerOwnerKey
FK3 MarkerKey DimDate
PK MarkerKey FK4 SiteKey
FK5 CrossSectionKey PK DateKey
MarkerName FK6 GeologyKey
...... FK7 GeometryKey FullDate
...... Northbound Southbound

Fig. 6. A typical ground settlement trough over twin tunnels.

DimSite DimGeometry

PK SiteKey PK GeometryKey
SiteName TunnelDepth
...... ......
Fig. 4. Part of the multi-dimensional data model of ground settlement.
large ground settlement brings great safety risk to both the tunnel
and its adjacent facilities.
The construction of a tunnel inevitably affects existing ground
stresses and hydro-geological conditions, which will induce ground set-
tlement. Suwansawat and Einstein [13] pointed out that a major prob-
lem in evaluating the ground settlement was lack of extensive eld
instrumentation data and relevant construction information. The pro-
posed DW provides an excellent data support to evaluate the ground
settlement in multiple dimensions.
4.1. Revised model of ground settlement trough
The spatial dimension in the DW offers a perspective to evaluate
the spatial characteristics of the instrumentation data. The distribu-
tion of ground settlement is depicted by the settlement trough. Peck
[11] once suggested that the settlement trough above a single tunnel
could be represented by a Gaussian curve as follows:
where S is ground settlement, Smax is the maximum settlement above
the tunnel centerline, x is the horizontal distance from the tunnel cen-
terline in the transverse direction, and i is the distance from the tun-
nel centerline to the inexion point of the curve, which determines
the shape of the curve, as is shown in Fig. 5.
However, twin tunnels have been used more often than a single tun-
nel, especially in urban metro construction. This requires a redenition
of the ground settlement trough over twin tunnels. Suwansawat and
Einstein [14] used a superposition technique to describe the settlement
trough over twin tunnels. First, when the preceding tunnel just passed
through, the ground settlement was tted by a Gaussian function,
which was referred to as the settlement trough induced by the preced-
ing tunnel. Then, the additional settlement was obtained by subtracting
this portion of settlement from the nal settlement after the following
tunnel passed. Then the additional settlement was tted by another
Gaussian function. Finally, the two curves were superposed to present
the overall ground settlement trough. The hypothesis implies that the
additional settlement is only induced by the following tunnel but has
nothing to do with the preceding tunnel. Hence, the hypothesis may
lead to non-optimal tting results.
In this study, a double Gaussian model is proposed to represent
the settlement trough over twin tunnels as follows:
  h i
2 2
S s1 exp a1 x s2 exp a2 xu 2

!
x2 where S is the overall ground settlement. s1 and s2 can be considered as
S Smax exp 2 1
2i the maximum ground disturbance induced by the northbound tunnel

Inflexion point of the curve

Tunnel centerline
Settlement trough

Fig. 5. Ground settlement trough induced by a single tunnel. Fig. 7. Histogram of correlation coefcient from 3638 trials.

Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
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 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx 5

Fig. 10. A typical settlement trough located in DK26 + 970.

Fig. 8. Box-plot with R of good tting results. and r is the residual vector of m settlement markers in each ground
array. The LevenbergMarquardt (LM) method [9] uses a search direc-
tion pk to iteratively minimize F and to nd an optimum estimation of
and the southbound tunnel respectively. x is the horizontal distance
the unknown parameters (i.e. s1, a1, s2 and a2) in Eq. (2). pk is a solu-
from the northbound tunnel centerline in the transverse direction. a1
tion of the linear set of equations as follows:
and a2, as replacements of the original parameter (i.e. i) in Eq. (1), are
the shape parameters of the settlement trough. u, which is already  
T T
recorded in the DW, is the distance between the two tunnels. A typical Jk Jk k I pk Jk Rk 6
ground settlement trough over twin tunnels is shown in Fig. 6.
While the non-linear single Gaussian model (i.e. Eq. (1)) could be where k is the iteration step and J is the Jacobian matrix of r as follows:
easily transformed to a linear one by log transformation, the proposed h  2 i
ea2 xj u s2 xj u ea2 xj u
2 2 2 2
double Gaussian model (i.e. Eq. (2)) could not. Consequently, in order J ea1 xj s1 xj 2 ea1 xj : 7
j1;2;m
to t the proposed model to the instrumentation data in the DW, a
non-linear least-squares based optimization method (i.e. Levenberg
Marquardt method) is implemented to solve this problem. The scalar k, i.e. damping factor, controls both the magnitude and
According to Eq. (2), the objective function F will be direction of pk at each major iteration. If the reduction of F is rapid, a
smaller k can be used, but if an iteration gives insufcient reduction
m h
X i2 of F, k can be increased and pk tends to move towards a more steep
F r j s1 ; a1 ; s2 ; a2 3 descent direction. In this work the initial damping factor 0 is given as
j1 0.001.

where 4.2. Results from spatial analysis

    2 
2
r j s1 ; a1 ; s2 ; a2 s1 exp a1 xj s2 exp a2 xj u Sj 4 3638 groups of samples are tted by LM method in the analysis.
The root-mean-square error (RMSE) and correlation coefcient (R) are
used to validate the tting results. Fig. 7 shows the histogram of R.
Sj is the observed ground settlement at jth settlement marker. Conse- 83% of the cases show good tting results with R > 0.8. The RMSE and
quently, rj(s1,a1,s2,a2) is the deviation of jth data point from the tted R of these cases are shown in Figs. 8 and 9. As a result, the proposed dou-
curve. ble Gaussian model t the settlement data well.
DK26 + 970 is a typical settlement array, as shown in Fig. 3. Actually,
T due to the interference of the site conditions, only 5 settlement markers
r r1 r2 rm  5
were put into use in this ground array, so marker 6 was excluded. The
instrumentation data, however, could still be fully represented by the

Settlement Marker

Northbound Northbound

Moment 1 Moment 2

Southbound Southbound

Tunnel face
Settlement Array

Fig. 9. Box-plot with RMSE of good tting results. Fig. 11. Two moments depicted in Fig. 10.

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Table 2
Description of each curve.

Curve Description

A Ground disturbance induced by the following tunnel when the preceding

tunnel passed beneath
B Ground disturbance induced by the preceding tunnel when the preceding
tunnel passed beneath
C Ground settlement trough over twin tunnels when the preceding tunnel
passed beneath (i.e. A+ B)
D Ground disturbance induced by the preceding tunnel when both tunnels
passed through
E Ground disturbance induced by the following tunnel when both tunnels
passed through
F Ground settlement trough over twin tunnels when both tunnels passed
through (i.e. D + E)

proposed double Gaussian model, as shown in Fig. 10. Settlement data

of the array at 2 moments (as shown in Fig. 11) was plotted with dif-
ferent symbols. Round points indicate the ground settlement records
at moment 1 when the northbound tunnel (i.e. the preceding tunnel)
passed beneath the array whereas square points indicate the ground
settlement records at moment 2 when both tunnels passed through
the array and the ground stabilized. Each group of data was tted by
the proposed double Gaussian model (i.e. C and F). According to
Eq. (2), both the two curves C and F could be decomposed into two
parts to represent the ground disturbance by each tunnel (i.e. C =
A + B, F = D + E). Descriptions of each curve are illustrated in Table 2.
As shown in Fig. 10, the northbound tunnel (i.e. the preceding tun-
nel) passed under the ground array rst, while the southbound tunnel
(i.e. the following tunnel) was far away the array. However, the exca-
vation of southbound tunnel had still made a small disturbance to the
ground (i.e. A). When the southbound tunnel also passed through the
ground array and the ground became stabilized, the ground distur-
bance induced by the southbound tunnel had sharply increased from
A to E. Moreover, at this moment, although the northbound tunnel
had passed through for a time, it still enlarged the ground disturbance
from B to D. Finally, D and E made up the overall ground settlement
trough over twin tunnels (i.e. F).
Some other results are shown in Fig. 12. In the Wuhan Metro Pro-
ject, in order to speed up the construction progress, the twin tunnels
Fig. 13. Trough width parameters of DK25 + 325.
were divided into several parts by tunnel shafts along the tunnel align-
ment. Independent construction procedures were progressed for
each part. DK25 + 067, DK25 + 092 and DK26 + 940 were located at
a part where the southbound tunnel was the preceding tunnel, where-
as DK25 + 142 was located, like DK26 + 970, at a part where the
northbound tunnel was the preceding tunnel.
It can be concluded that although there is a signicant enlargement
of ground settlement when the tunnel is passing beneath (i.e. B and E
A), both the pre-settlement (i.e. A) and the post-settlement (i.e. DB)
still exist, deserving due attention. This nding can be regarded as
the main difference between Suwansawat and Einstein' work [14]
and this study. Their simplied method implied that they omitted
the pre-settlement of the following tunnel, i.e. A, and used B directly
to represent C. Moreover, they considered that the overall additional
settlement was only induced by the following tunnel. As a result, the
settlement of the preceding tunnel, i.e. (DB), was also omitted. This

Fig. 12. Part of the settlement troughs derived from the proposed DW.

Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
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 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx 7

may lead to a narrower ground settlement trough and underestima- derived from Eq. (2) as follows:
tion of the amount of ground settlement.
p p
i1 1= 2a1 and i2 1= 2a2 : 8
4.3. Scoping of the safety risk areas
With a view to the overlap of ground disturbance of the twin tun-
By directly tting the data with the proposed double peak Gaussian nels (as shown in Fig. 13), a more comprehensive trough width pa-
model, the ground disturbance induced by each tunnel could be more rameter (i.e. ) for twin tunnels is proposed as follows:
exactly represented. Recalling Eq. (1) the characteristics of Gaussian
curve, i is a vital parameter which determines the atness of the i i i u=2: 9
1 2
curve. The larger the value of i, the wider the settlement trough on
the ground. Therefore, the former is also dened as a trough width pa- The proposed is considered to be a measurement of the scope of
rameter. Considering the twin tunnels, i for each tunnel could also be safety risk areas, since most of the ground settlement happened

Fig. 14. Time variations of trough with parameters.

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8 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx

within the distance of 3 on each cross-section above the twin tun-

nels. And the area within the distance of deserves the most safety at-
tention. Consequently, the derived factor from the DW was
implemented in the safety decisions on the Wuhan Metro Project.
By combining the spatial analysis with temporal dimension, the
proposed safety-oriented DW facilitates the evaluation of the evolv-
ing scope of risk. As shown in Fig. 14, the time variations of all the
trough width parameters (i.e. i1, i2 and ) are investigated. All the
parameters are listed by normalized time t (a value from 0 through
1). Different symbols stand for different ground arrays. Because differ-
ent ground arrays are not in use or are not monitored at the same time,
the normalized time makes the comparison more convenient. In addi-
tion, since the ground array is put into service before the preceding
tunnel passes beneath it and goes out of monitoring after both tunnels
pass under the array and the ground has stabilized, the normalized Fig. 15. A typical soil prole in Wuhan Metro Project.

time can also illustrate the whole tunneling process around each
array. Consequently, the results can also reect the relationship be-
tween trough width parameters and the tunneling process.
As shown in Fig. 14, during the tunneling process, there is little
change in the width of overall settlement trough and that of each tun-
nel, but the settlement trough has been enlarged indeed, as shown
in Figs. 10 and 12. Therefore, the width of settlement trough may be
mainly determined by some time-invariant factors like the geological
conditions (i.e. soil condition, ground water table, etc.). Also, the
tunneling process of each tunnel only deepens the settlement trough,
but does not widen it notably.
This nding also implies that can only be regarded as a measure-
ment of static risk. Although a good control of tunneling process may
be helpful in reducing the ground settlement in a certain area, the
scope of the inuenced area may be predetermined by the geological
conditions or some other objective conditions.
Some researchers discussed the factors affecting the width of set-
tlement trough. Based on detailed instrumentation data, Mahmutoglu,
Y [20] reported that the variations in the settlement trough are related
to the soil type and the thickness of the tunnel's overburden. Ac-
cording to the Gaussian model of a single tunnel, O'Reilly and New
[8] made an analysis of case history data and proposed the formula
i kz 10
Based on the results of back-analysis by using the monitoring data
of the Taipei Rapid Transit System, Chi, S.Y et al. [17] reported the fact
that = 45 for tunneling in clay, while ranges between 30 and 45
for sandy layers. Moreover, E.J. Cording and W.H. Hansmire [2]
suggested that = 11 for rock and hard clays. Consequently,
according to Eq. (12), we can get some useful suggestions about the
value of k, as shown in Table 3.
However, in a real tunnel project, the soil layers in the prole may
not be uniform. The geological conditions in Wuhan Metro Project are
more complex. The context dimensions in the DW facilitate the com-
bination of spatial analysis results with the structured description of
geological information. According to the extracted data from geolog-
ical reports, the overburden of the tunnel can be mainly divided
into 3 layers, i.e. ll, clay and rock, as is shown in Fig. 15.
When looking at the soil layers above the tunnel centerline, the
thicknesses of soil layers vary from one another at different cross-
sections of the tunnel along the tunnel alignment. Apart from this,
the inuences of these different soil types on the trough width pa-
rameter vary signicantly (as shown in Table 3). Consequently, the
conventional tunnel depth z, i.e. the vertical distance from ground
surface to the tunnel centerline, is redened as z, which reects the
comprehensive inuence of the overburden of different soil layers
on the trough width. The formula can be expressed as follows:

where i is the trough width parameter, k is an empirical constant relat- z kj j 13

ed to the soil type, and z is tunnel depth, i.e. the vertical distance from
ground surface to the tunnel centerline. where j is the thickness of the jth soil layer and kj is the empirical
Considering the twin tunnels, Suwansawat and Einstein [14] constant related to this soil type. In this study, 0.3, 0.5 and 0.1 are cho-
found that the trough width parameter i, which is obtained from sen as the values of kj for ll, clay and rock respectively.
the additional settlement trough over the following tunnel, was in Trough width parameter derived from 24 stabilized troughs are
agreement with O'Reilly and New's work [8]. It found that the empir- shown in Fig. 16 to represent the relationship between and z.
ical constant k falls within the bound of 0.4 and 0.5, which was similar Round points indicate that there is no conned water around the
to most cases of tunneling projects in clay layers.
Chi, S.Y et al. [17] also summarized the relationship between
trough width i and tunnel depth z by using the angle of the inuence
zone of ground settlement (i.e. ) as follows:

tan 2i=z: 11

By combining Eq. (10) with Eq. (11), we can easily derive the
following:

k tan=2: 12

Table 3
Suggested value of k.

Type of soil k

Sandy layers 0.30.5

Clayey soils 0.5
Rock and hard clays 0.1
Fig. 16. Relationship between and z.

Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
Automation in Construction (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009
 L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx
settlement trough whereas square points indicate that there is con-
ned water. It can be concluded that when the revised tunnel depth
z tends to be deeper, the trough width parameter, namely, the radius
of the risk scope, tends to be wider. Moreover, conned water seems
to centralize the safety risk scope around its location by decreasing
the trough width parameter. Consequently, the conned water is con-
sidered as an unfavorable geological condition in Wuhan Metro Pro-
ject. However, this nding was not considered in former research
works.
Furthermore, the proposed trough width parameter (i.e. ) cannot
comprehensively reect the degree of safety risk as it can only repre-
sent the inuenced scope of the ground. Because the settlement
trough could still be very shallow sometimes when tends to be a larg-
er value, the degree of safety risk tends to be minor. Consequently, a
more comprehensive parameter should be introduced to represent
both the depth and width of the settlement trough.
4.4. Evolution of safety risk degree
In the proposed DW, ground loss Vl was introduced to solve the
above-mentioned problem. It is dened as the integral of the ground
settlement trough.
x   the settlement array. These revealed evolution laws of safety risk are
2 2
V l s1 exp a1 x s2 expa2 xu
14
p
x
2i1 s1 i2 s2
where, i1 and i2 arepthe
trough width
pparameters of the two tunnels re-
spectively (i1 1= 2a1 ,i2 1= 2a2 ). It's worth noting that meter (m)
is used as the unit of i1 and i2, and millimeter (mm) for s1 and s2. There-
fore, the integral results should be divided by 1000 to get the unit of m2.
Vl is considered as an important safety indicator in spatial dimen-
sion. By combining the spatial analysis with temporal dimension, the
proposed safety-oriented DW facilitates the evaluating the evolution
of Vl. It is found that the derived ground loss Vl is growing in a pattern
that can be well represented by the logistic growth curve (Eq. (15)),
as is shown in Fig. 17.
  p 
t 0.4
V l V max V 1 15
t0
where Vl is the ground loss at the normalized time t (a value from
0 through 1), Vmax is the maximum ground loss when the ground is
Fig. 17. Time variation of ground loss measured at DK25 + 192.
Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
Automation in Construction (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009
9
stabilized after both tunnels have passed through, V is the increased
ground loss from the initial time to the nal stablizaed stabilized
time, p is a parameter that determines the shape of the curve and is
relevant to the geological conditions along with the construction
conditions.
The selected settlement array shown in Fig. 17 was located at
chainage DK25 + 192. It was put into use from January 31st, 2009
(when the tunnel face of the preceding tunnel was 28 m before the
array) to May 19th, 2009 (when the tunnel face of the preceding tun-
nel was 75.2 m after the array). These 109 days are mapped to a nor-
malized time scale, which also indicates the 104.2 m advancement of
the preceding tunnel face.
It could be concluded that the value of Vl at a certain area will in-
crease sharply while the tunnel face is approaching and passing
through, whereas the growth rate of Vl will decrease after the tunnel
passes through. Finally, the value of Vl stops increasing when it
reaches a certain value. As shown in Fig. 18(a), the rst derivative
of Vl at DK25 + 192 reects the growing rate of Vl, which also reects
the evolution of safety risk. The moment with the highest growing
rate of Vl which indicates the highest safety risk, can be easily xed
by the second derivative of Vl (as shown in Fig. 18(b)). By combining
this nding with the records of construction progress in the DW, it
can be concluded that the moment subjected to the highest safety
risk is the moment when the preceding tunnel is just arriving beneath
considered to be valuable references for safety management in future
Wuhan Metro construction project.
Additionally, by dividing the Vl of stabilized ground settlement
troughs by the excavation area of twin tunnels, the ration of ground
loss can be derived. Most of the ground loss rations from different
areas in this project fall between 0.5% and 1%, as is shown in Fig. 19.
This may be a reference for further work.
a First derivative of Ground loss
0.8
0.6
0.2
0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
b Second derivative of Ground loss
Highest growing rate
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Fig. 18. First and second derivatives of ground loss at DK25 + 192.
10
1.4
1.2
1.0
Ratio of ground loss
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
Fig. 19. Ratio of ground loss in Wuhan Metro Project.
5. Conclusion
The difculties in safety risk control for metro tunnel construction
projects fall mainly into two categories:
1) Lack of construction experience
2) Lack of complete information of the site
A multidimensional data model, which includes spatio-temporal di-
mensions and context dimensions, is proposed to establish a safety-
oriented DW. The DW facilitates the information retrieval and safety de-
cisions on the basis of large amounts of data. Since large scale metro
tunnel construction will continue for a long time in China, the valuable
knowledge derived from the DW will be good references for the future
construction projects. The benets of the proposed DW are demonstrat-
ed through a multidimensional analysis of ground settlement. Some
other interesting ndings are drawn from this study:
1) The proposed double Gaussian model well represents the ground
settlement trough over twin tunnels. 83% of the cases show good
tting results with R > 0.8.
2) The redened trough width parameter, which is derived from the
proposed double Gaussian model, can be considered as a measure-
ment of static risk. Since the trough width parameter is almost
time-invariant, it was discovered that the tunneling process of
each tunnel mainly deepens, but does not signicantly widen the
settlement trough. The relationship between the trough width
and geological conditions is also discussed in this paper. The nd-
ing can be of great help in estimating the scope of safety risk. More-
over, since it exerts a negative centralized impact on ground
settlement, conned water is considered to be an unfavorable geo-
logical condition.
3) As a more comprehensive parameter that reects the safety risk,
the derived ground loss was used to represent both the depth
and width of the settlement trough over twin tunnels. The logistic
growth curve can be applied to well represent the growth of
ground loss over time. The rst derivative of ground loss shows
the evolution laws of safety risk while the second derivative of
ground loss helps identify the moment with the highest safety
Please cite this article as: L. Ma, et al., Safety risk analysis based on a geotechnical instrumentation data warehouse in metro tunnel project,
Automation in Construction (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.autcon.2012.10.009
L. Ma et al. / Automation in Construction xxx (2012) xxxxxx
risk. It is found that the moment the tunnel reaches beneath a cer-
tain point deserves the greatest attention to safety in the nearby
area, which accords with our common knowledge. Additionally,
we may also regard the second derivative of ground loss as a safe-
ty warning index when it fails to reach 0 after the tunnel passes
through.
The spatio distribution and time-dependent characteristic of ground
settlement are investigated in this study. Future work will focus on eval-
uation and exploration of the impact of construction and geological con-
ditions on the changing regularity of ground settlement, since this study
has demonstrated that soil properties have some impact on the trough
width parameter.
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