Sir Alan Wood Memorial Symposium

Contribution by D John Curtis FICE

How the Curtis/Muir Wood Equations came to be.

Late in 1972 Hugh Norie and I were asked by Mott, Hay & Anderson (now Mott
MacDonald) to contribute to meetings between the French and British designers for the
Channel Tunnel project which had recently been given permission to proceed by the
governments of the UK and France. One of the reference documents we used was a
paper published in 1961 by H D Morgan of Halcrow(1).
At a meeting a few months later I was approached by some of the French engineers who
claimed that Morgans analysis was wrong. [Morgan was a highly respected tunnel
engineer whose contributions to the art and the science of tunnelling can be found in the
other papers published by him.] I set out to investigate this claim, and found that it was
correct. Morgans analysis of the effects upon a circular tunnel lining in an elastic
medium was flawed. I produced a similar analysis from first principles which is
theoretically correct.
In 1974 I came into possession of an advance copy of a paper by Muir Wood to be
published in Geotechnique. Halcrow and Motts were in joint venture for the design of the
Channel Tunnel at that time. In this paper Morgans error was repeated, so I gave an
outline of the correct analysis to Muir Woods assistant so that the error could be
corrected. It wasnt. Muir Woods paper(2) was published in 1975. I then prepared a
discussion note upon his paper(3) but before it could be submitted for publication it was
necessary to obtain permission from my principals at that time, who would not sanction it
unless Muir Wood agreed. To his great credit Muir Wood did agree.
The Curtis/Muir Wood Equations came to be so-called as a result of the fact that my
solution was presented as a discussion paper upon that of Muir Wood. What is amazing
is that these equations continue to be in use around the world to this day and have been
quoted in myriads of papers by others.

Application to the Channel Tunnel

The argument related to the linear elastic theory, that is the ground surrounding the
tunnel behaves like a perfect elastic medium. My paper extended that theory into the
realm of visco-elasticity. This is acceptable for the behaviour of concrete tunnel linings,
but is unknown to geotechnical engineers. It happens that there were two sets of data
available from the 1880s Channel Tunnel project the approximately 2m diameter tunnel
bored on the UK side and the trial tunnels constructed in France, known as the Galleries
des Anciens. Both were re-investigated in the 1970s Channel Tunnel project, and
together with results from the extensive instrumentation carried out in the 250m long
tunnel constructed in 1975 it was reasonable to assume that the visco-elastic theory
could be used to design the 1980s project which was eventually realised in full. The
tunnel was opened for business in 1993. The Chalk Marl through which most of the
tunnel passed through is a three-part material consisting of calcium carbonate (chalk),
clay and water. Not many tunnels were built in such materials before the Channel
Tunnel. Many tunnels are built in ground in which the response is time-dependent as
pore water pressures will vary as stress changes vary, but the combination of the
materials in the chalk marl is unusual, and pore water variation is not the only factor in
determining time-dependent response to tunnelling.

Results from the Channel Tunnel

The results of monitoring from the 1972-5 project were published in 1976(4). Further
monitoring took place in the 1986 project which was completed in 1993 as programmed, and
monitoring continued since then. Up until about the year 2000 Mott MacDonald prepared an
analysis of measurements for Eurotunnel, after when Eurotunnel took this upon themselves,
and I have not seen any later results. My recollection of the results up to 2000 is that the
monitored sections under the greatest ground cover were closer to the design values for
tunnel lining loads than were sections under lower ground cover, upon the UK side, but that
nowhere had the serviceability design values been exceeded. In any case the actual
compressive strength of the segments built into the UK tunnels was more than 90Mpa, far
greater than the design strength of 60Mpa, so there was still a huge margin of safety over
and above that which was built into the design calculations.

References
(1) Morgan H D. A contribution to the analysis of stress in a circular tunnel.
March 1961, vol 11, pp37-46.

Gotechnique

(2) Muir Wood A M. The circular tunnel in elastic ground. Gotechnique 1975 vol 26, pp115-127.

(3) Curtis D J. A discussion note upon ref (2) above. Gotechnique 1976 vol 26.

(4) Curtis, D J et al. Insitu Ground and Lining Studies for the Channel Tunnel Project. Proc
Tunnelling '76, The Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, London, 1976.

D J Curtis
October 2010