Abstract: Waste soils are frequently generated in the expressway construction projects. In the densely populated area, the selection of the waste soil disposal is constrained by the environmental and stability requirements. This paper presents a case history of evaluation of the effect of a waste soil site on a shallow burred tunnel. Both the equivalent soil thickness method and the Boussinesq effective stress method were used to estimate the effective stress acting on the tunnel structures with different waste soil heights. The performance of the tunnel liners under the additional stress was also analyzed. It is concluded that the equivalent soil thickness is more conservative than the Bousinesq solution. The evaluation approach of the effect of waste soil on the structural safety of the shallow buried tunnel is also suggested in the paper.

Key words: Waste Soil Disposal Site, Shallow Burred Tunnels, Structural Safety, Additional Effective Stress