Tunnel Segment Cross Gasket Asymmetric Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Designing a radial cross gasket for tunnel segments that allows for proper sealing without overturning during the installation of the final segment, which requires longitudinal sliding, is challenging due to the existing gaskets' design limitations.
Innovation Solution
A radial cross gasket with a gasket body featuring a bottom face, a top face with a tapered portion, and a unique configuration of bores and grooves, including different cross-sectional shapes and sizes, allowing for initial contact of tapered surfaces before sealing surfaces align, ensuring proper alignment and sealing without overturning.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a typical gasket is placed on a radial face of a tunnel key segment to provide sealing, then sealing function is provided, but the gasket overturns when the opposing gaskets are brought into contact during installation
Solution Approach 1:
The gasket is designed with an asymmetric cross-sectional shape where the first side has a different profile than the second side. This asymmetry allows the gasket to maintain proper orientation during installation, preventing overturning while ensuring reliable sealing contact between opposing gaskets in the key segment position.
2Ease of operation
If the final segment is slid in a longitudinal direction during installation, then proper assembly is enabled, but existing gaskets cannot function properly and overturn
Solution Approach 1:
The asymmetric gasket design is prepared in advance during manufacturing, creating different contact surfaces on opposite sides. This preliminary configuration ensures that when the key segment is slid into place during installation, the gasket maintains proper orientation and functions correctly without overturning.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a radial cross gasket is added to extend between circumferential gaskets, then gas seepage is retarded, but the gasket design becomes more complex and may overturn during assembly
Solution Approach 1:
The gasket features locally differentiated properties with asymmetric cross-sectional profiles on its first and second sides. This local quality variation provides different functional characteristics: one side is optimized for contact with circumferential gaskets while the other side contacts the tunnel segment surface, enabling effective gas sealing without requiring overly complex overall design.
Data Source
AI summary
A tunnel segment radial cross gasket includes a base side or face and a top side or face. A plurality of longitudinally extending spaced parallel grooves are disposed on the base side. One or more longitudinally oriented bores, which are spaced from each other, extend through the gasket. The top face of the gasket includes first and second sections, with the second section being tapered or angled in relation to the first section.