Estimating Tunneling-Induced Settlement of a Pipeline Buried in Heterogeneous Ground Through Stochastic FEM by Bridging Available Tools

Abstract

The finite element method (FEM) combined with a random field of soil properties is often used to simulate soil-structure interactions in a heterogeneous ground. A large number of scenarios are required to obtain reliable results from this stochastic FEM scheme. This paper introduces a workflow programmed with Python to automate stochastic FEM simulation by taking advantage of an available random-field generator and a commercial FEM software. The Python script enables a batch mode of a large number of simulations. The effectiveness of the workflow is demonstrated by a study on estimating tunneling-induced settlement of a pipeline buried in heterogeneous ground.