Soil Conditions and Shield Tunneling Viability for Bogotá Metro Line 1

Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, has experienced a critical situation regarding its public transport and road network condition. Unfortunately, the city has lacked an analytical long-term evaluation with regard to transport planning and infrastructure that is able to meet the growing demand. The metro system has been planned for more than half a century, and the existing soil investigations have not been fully used to evaluate the feasibility of building a metro in Bogotá’s subsoil. In order to estimate the construction viability of an underground system in the city, the authors studied the ground conditions along the alignment of Metro Line 1, as proposed in 2014. This research brought forward the stratigraphic profile of the first 6,6 km of the alignment. The ground displacements induced by tunneling were estimated by means of a finite element analysis, and the results are presented in this paper along with their significance. The results forecast surface settlements lower than 10 mm, showing that the condition and strength of the soil are suitable for underground metro construction. However, soil consolidation and appropriate monitoring during and after tunneling should be taken under consideration for the sake of the project’s success.