During the last four decades, reinforced-concrete structure failures have been happening widely for many reasons, such as increased service loads, war accidents, fire, and durability problems. The economic losses due to those failures are very high. An expert system is an interactive computer-based decision tool that uses both facts and heuristics to solve difficult problems based on knowledge acquired from experts. To realize these requirements, a logic programming visual basic language is used together with visual diagnosis. The expert system, Diagnosis of Fire-Caused Damages to Reinforced-Concrete Tunnel Lining (DFCDRCTL) was developed in this work for diagnosing the annual damages caused by fire. The program is used as an alternative of a human expert to make annual technical decisions in diagnosing fire damages at the second reinforced-concrete tunnel lining segment. It is concluded that the proposed DFCDRCTL expert system is easy to use, and is fast and helpful for engineers.
Based on the first unde rwater railway shield tunnel, the Shiziyang shield tunnel of Guangzhou Zhu- jiang River, the prototype test was carried out against its segmental lining structure by using ＂multi-function shield tunnel structure test system＂. And the mechanical characteristics of segmental lining structure using straight assembling and staggered assembling were studied deeply. The results showed that, the mechanical characteristics of segmental lining structure varied with the water pressures; especially after cracking, the high water pressure played a significant role in slowing down the growing inner force and deformation. It also testi- fied that the failure characteristics varied with straight assembling structure and staggered assembling structure. Shear thilurc often occurred near longitudinal seam when using straight assembling.
