| As a new and special type of engineering across river or sea, immersed tube tunnel has been widely adopted in transportation system all over the world. One of the most important and difficult procedures on immersed tube construction is immersion of the tunnel elements. Not only the immersing process is complex which involves floating barges, tube element and mooring cables, but also the barges and immersed tube element have been affected by wind, water flow, wave and many other marine environment factors. Studying the force characteristics of mooring cables and the motion of tube element will be helpful for forecasting the dangerous situation and guiding the construction.This experimental study is conducted on the immersion of tunnel tube. The emphasis of the investigation is on the tension characteristics of mooring cables. First, the static characteristics of a single cable and mooring cables system are analyzed. Then, the physical model of mooring cables are designed and made. The similarity and reliability of the physical models are proved. After that, the cable models are used in model test of tunnel tube immersion process. The affection of wind, water flow, wave, negative buoyancy of tube, sinking depth on the tension characteristics of mooring system are analyzed. According to the result and analysis, some proposals about the immersion process are offered. |
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