Numerical Investigation on the Mechanical Properties of Vault Void Lining and Steel Plate Strengthening

To study the mechanism of vault lining under different void heights and verify the strengthening effect of the attached steel plate, a CDP (concrete-damaged plasticity) model and the XFEM (extended finite element method) were used to construct the local numerical model of the vault void, and an experiment was carried out for verification. The strengthened structure of the steel plate was assembled with a combination of a two-component epoxy adhesive and chemical anchor bolts. Five lining models with various void thicknesses, together with their strengthened models, were evaluated. The results of the established numerical model were compared with the experimental results in terms of failure mode, vertical displacement, and load-deformation results. The results of the two numerical models were in good agreement with the experimental results, revealing the failure mechanism of the vault lining. The rigidity of the specimen after steel plate strengthening was significantly improved. When the void height was one-fourth of the secondary lining thickness, the lining cracks were reduced from 14 to 4, and the distribution width of the cracks was also reduced from 1.047 to 0.091 m after steel plate strengthening. The level of damage caused by cracking was significantly reduced, which proves the effectiveness of the surface-sticking method for steel plate strengthening.