Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet

The earth pressure balance shield machine (EPB) is an important piece of engineering equipment used in tunnel excavation and plays an important role in large underground tunnel projects. This article takes the sand and gravel formation as the research object, while discrete element simulation is uti...

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Main Authors: Peng Zhou, Qian Wang, Ziwen Wang, Jiacan Xu, Zi Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-07-01
Series:Applied Sciences
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/14/7983
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author Peng Zhou
Qian Wang
Ziwen Wang
Jiacan Xu
Zi Wang
author_facet Peng Zhou
Qian Wang
Ziwen Wang
Jiacan Xu
Zi Wang
author_sort Peng Zhou
collection DOAJ
description The earth pressure balance shield machine (EPB) is an important piece of engineering equipment used in tunnel excavation and plays an important role in large underground tunnel projects. This article takes the sand and gravel formation as the research object, while discrete element simulation is utilized to study the correlation between cutterhead torque and thrust and other parameters. The EPB tunneling experiment was carried out by setting up formations with different sand and gravel contents. The reliability of the simulation model was verified by the experimental data, which provided the data samples for the training of the excavation formation identification network. Finally, a GTNet (gated Transformer network) based on the formation identification method was proposed. The reliability of the network model was verified by contrasting the model used with other network models and by analyzing the results of experiment and visualization. The effects of different parameters were weighted using the ablation study for tunneling parameters. The proposed method has a high accuracy of 0.99, and the cutterhead torque and thrust have a great recognition feature, the weight of which is over 0.95. This paper can provide significant guidance for the torque and thrust analysis of cutterheads in tunnel construction.
format Article
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institution Kabale University
issn 2076-3417
language English
publishDate 2025-07-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Applied Sciences
spelling doaj-art-bdce31f72fb74bfb8b8eff603920177a2025-08-20T03:36:13ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172025-07-011514798310.3390/app15147983Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNetPeng Zhou0Qian Wang1Ziwen Wang2Jiacan Xu3Zi Wang4School of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, ChinaSchool of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, ChinaSchool of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, ChinaSchool of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, ChinaSchool of Mechanical Engineering, Shenyang Jianzhu University, Shenyang 110168, ChinaThe earth pressure balance shield machine (EPB) is an important piece of engineering equipment used in tunnel excavation and plays an important role in large underground tunnel projects. This article takes the sand and gravel formation as the research object, while discrete element simulation is utilized to study the correlation between cutterhead torque and thrust and other parameters. The EPB tunneling experiment was carried out by setting up formations with different sand and gravel contents. The reliability of the simulation model was verified by the experimental data, which provided the data samples for the training of the excavation formation identification network. Finally, a GTNet (gated Transformer network) based on the formation identification method was proposed. The reliability of the network model was verified by contrasting the model used with other network models and by analyzing the results of experiment and visualization. The effects of different parameters were weighted using the ablation study for tunneling parameters. The proposed method has a high accuracy of 0.99, and the cutterhead torque and thrust have a great recognition feature, the weight of which is over 0.95. This paper can provide significant guidance for the torque and thrust analysis of cutterheads in tunnel construction.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/14/7983stacking anglediscrete elementcutterhead torquecutterhead thrusttransformer
spellingShingle Peng Zhou
Qian Wang
Ziwen Wang
Jiacan Xu
Zi Wang
Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
Applied Sciences
stacking angle
discrete element
cutterhead torque
cutterhead thrust
transformer
title Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
title_full Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
title_fullStr Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
title_full_unstemmed Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
title_short Identification and Experimental Study of Sand Gravel Formations Driven by an Earth Pressure Balance Shield Machine Based on GTNet
title_sort identification and experimental study of sand gravel formations driven by an earth pressure balance shield machine based on gtnet
topic stacking angle
discrete element
cutterhead torque
cutterhead thrust
transformer
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/15/14/7983
work_keys_str_mv AT pengzhou identificationandexperimentalstudyofsandgravelformationsdrivenbyanearthpressurebalanceshieldmachinebasedongtnet
AT qianwang identificationandexperimentalstudyofsandgravelformationsdrivenbyanearthpressurebalanceshieldmachinebasedongtnet
AT ziwenwang identificationandexperimentalstudyofsandgravelformationsdrivenbyanearthpressurebalanceshieldmachinebasedongtnet
AT jiacanxu identificationandexperimentalstudyofsandgravelformationsdrivenbyanearthpressurebalanceshieldmachinebasedongtnet
AT ziwang identificationandexperimentalstudyofsandgravelformationsdrivenbyanearthpressurebalanceshieldmachinebasedongtnet