Voids behind a lining may develop due to insufficient backfilling, poor workmanship, water erosion or gravity. They affect the interaction between the surrounding rock and lining and even cause instability of the lining structure. To ensure the safe operation of tunnels, it is very important to study the influence of voids behind the lining of the lining structure. In this paper, a laboratory model of a tunnel lining was established by taking the voids behind the lining of the Wushan Tunnel as an example. By changing the position and size of the voids, the corresponding stress variation law of the lining was obtained, and the influence of the voids behind the lining on the structural stability of the highway tunnel was analyzed. The experimental results showed that the voids behind the lining led to an increase in the stress near the voids, especially the voids at the vault. The circumferential stress and axial stress increased with increasing void depth and length, and the increase was greater with increasing void depth than increasing length; that is, the void depth had a greater effect on the lining stress. When the vault void depth was 30 mm, the axial tensile stress of the vault was 0.281 MPa, and the maximum increase was 178.2% compared with that without voids. The safety factors at different lining positions, from large to small, are: arch foot > spinner > arch top > arch waist. In the processes of lining operation and maintenance, special attention should be given to the treatment of voids behind the lining, especially deep voids.
Keywords: highway tunnel; lining void; model test; structural stability.