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Tunnel designers persistently experience issues regarding the impact of tunnel drainage on groundwater that can affect the safety of tunnels. From an environment-oriented approach, tunnel drainage affects the groundwater table and leads to alterations in the ecological environment in the long term. Accordingly, novel methods have been established to estimate drainage-induced drawdown concerning groundwater balance and environmental factors. However, the existing methods ignore the spatial characteristics of hydrogeological parameters and complex topography, leading to over-simplification of the groundwater flow; moreover, they lack a strategy to represent drawdown uncertainty. This paper presents a stochastic modeling method for inferring drainage-induced drawdown predictions conditional on tunnel inflow estimates. The method uses a numerical groundwater model to include the rock mass properties, fault zones, and complex topography of the tunnel area. The stochastic model processes the outcomes of the numerical model conditional on the absolute error of groundwater inflow based on Bayes' theorem. The contributions of the proposed method are as follows: (1) The method considers complex topography such as an inclined water table, fault zones, and rock type distribution. Accordingly, the groundwater simulation results indicate that the spatial distribution of rock types determines the magnitude of drawdown. Furthermore, the drawdown response was irregular and variable along the tunnel axis. (2) The Bayesian method allows the prediction of drawdown estimates with minimum data before tunnel construction with approximate drainage. The predictions can be updated using additional data during construction. (3) The application of the predictions is made flexible by arranging absolute error intervals, in which the decision-maker may consider the uncertainty of the parameters on the predicted solutions. The stochastic model was applied to a tunnel project in a poorly sampled ungauged mountainous catchment. The method provides information on parts of the tunnel that have the most significant potential impact with minimal input. The proposed method can be extended for long-term environmental impact assessment of tunnels by including surface features such as soil type, land use, and land cover. • Drawdown estimation was conducted using an environment-oriented approach. • The data scarcity problem was addressed using a stochastic modeling method. • The stochastic model estimates drawdown conditional to tunnel inflow measurements. • Drawdown is irregularly distributed and variable along the tunnel axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an update of the Hyperbolic Function (HBF) method to evaluate the liquefaction potential of sandy soils. The HBF method was created after the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan Earthquake (M w = 7.6) using the database of case histories developed based on field observations and in situ and laboratory tests in areas affected by the 1999 event. The updated HBF method reported herein reflects the 20-year efforts of research and practice in Taiwan after the 1999 event. Here, the original database created by Hwang and his co-workers was first re-examined and updated. The updated Chi-Chi database was supplemented with the cases derived from the 2016 Meinong, Taiwan Earthquake, and some selected data from other parts of the world. This new database was then used to update the parameters of the HBF model through rigorous statistical methods. The HBF model is unbiased (as it corresponds to a probability of 50%). The updated HBF method, a deterministic model, is further extended into a probabilistic version through rigorous statistical calibration. This probabilistic version is expressed as a mapping function that relates the factor of safety (F S) against liquefaction to the probability of liquefaction (P L). The design recommendation for engineering practice in Taiwan is provided based on the calibrated P L - FS mapping function. The updated HBF method is demonstrated through examples to be an easy-to-use procedure for liquefaction potential evaluation. Use of Bayes' theorem for updating the liquefaction probability and the new concept of liquefaction likelihood ratio are also discussed. • An updated database of liquefaction and non-liquefaction cases from Taiwan is created. • An easy-to-use HBF model for liquefaction evaluation is presented, which emerged from two decades of research in Taiwan. • Procedures for the calibration of empirical models for liquefaction evaluation are introduced and illustrated. • The concept of the liquefaction likelihood ratio (LR) is presented with a graph of LR contour curves for Bayesian updating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collapse is one of the main hazards during tunnel construction by the drill-and-blast method. In order to evaluate the collapse risk and provide a basis for risk control, a failure probability evaluation method for collapse of drill-and-blast tunnels based on the multistate fuzzy Bayesian network is proposed in this paper. First, the typical tunnel collapse cases are analyzed statistically based on the risk breakdown structure method, a fault tree model is built for drill-and-blast tunnel collapses and the causal relationships between the tunnel collapse and the influential factors, such as natural conditions, engineering geology and construction etc., are revealed. Secondly, the multiple fault states of nodes, including rock mass grade and groundwater, are described by the fuzzy numbers. The fuzzy subsets are utilized to describe the failure probability of nodes and the uncertain logic relationship between nodes described by the multistate fuzzy conditional probability table is established. In order to ensure the reliability of the survey data when evaluating the possibility intervals of the multistate fuzzy conditional probability tables and the fuzzy failure probability of root nodes, as well as taking the expert judgment ability level and subjective reliability level into consideration, an expert investigation method based on the confidence indicator is proposed. Finally, in order to fully exploit expert knowledge and empirical data, the α-weighted valuation method is adopted for defuzzification so as to obtain precise parameters for the conditional probability tables. The 3σ criterion is employed to calculate the characteristic values of triangular fuzzy numbers so as to determine the prior fuzzy failure probability of root nodes. By means of the fuzzy Bayesian inference, the proposed method is capable of calculating the probability distribution of tunnel collapse and identifying the critical risk factors under both prior knowledge and given evidence circumstances. Taking the collapse failure probability evaluation for the Xiucun Tunnel passing through the fault F18 as an example, the application results demonstrated the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed method and it can be utilized as a decision-making tool for safety risk management during tunnel construction. • The influential factors causing tunnel collapse are identified. • The multiple fault states of factors and uncertain logic relationship between factors are considered. • A multistate fuzzy BN based method is proposed for collapse failure probability analysis of drill-and-blast tunnels. • The proposed method can handle multistate vagueness and uncertainty compared to the traditional BN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]