Abstract:Along the transportation routes in mountainous areas of western China, mountain tunnels are susceptible to debris flow impacts, with the open-cut tunnel structures at tunnel entrances and exits being particularly prone to severe damage. However, the disaster mechanism of debris flow acting on open-cut tunnel structures remains unclear. The primary challenge lies in the coordinated description of the hydrodynamic response of debris flow and the solid damage response of open-cut tunnel structures. To address this, a coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian numerical method was developed. The Bingham model was used to describe the hydrodynamic properties of debris flow, and the concrete damage plastic model was employed to characterize the stress-strain relationship of open-cut tunnel structures. By simulating a real disaster case at the Futang Tunnel, the deformation and damage patterns of the structure under the impact of debris flow were elucidated. The simulation results showed that the total impact force on the upstream side was proportional to the square of the impact velocity, and the damage to the open-cut tunnel structure primarily occurred during the process when the total impact force reached its peak. The maximum displacement was observed on the sidewall of the upstream face, with axial tensile cracks developing on the inner surface of the lining and extensive spalling damage on the outer surface. As the debris flow impact velocity and yield stress increased, the damage to the open-cut tunnel intensified, with the cracks extending obliquely beyond the flow cross-section and potentially leading to the instability failure of the lining. Compared with the side impacts, crown impacts could significantly reduce the damage level of the open-cut tunnel and its sensitivity to impact velocity. The above findings indicate that to enhance the debris flow disaster prevention and control capacity of tunnel engineering in China, it is necessary to conduct field investigations to determine the development locations and composition of debris flow. Corresponding measures should be established to reduce debris flow impact velocity. Moreover, the spatial relationship between tunnels and mountains can be utilized to guide the impact location, thereby mitigating the impact damage of debris flow.