Bangkok metropolitan located on thick river soft clay deposit has recently construction project on mass rapid transit underground railway (MRT). This paper presents a simplified two-dimensional finite element studies on deep excavation and tunnelling in soft ground. The Finite Element Code PLAXIS is selected as a numerical tool and the Bangkok MRT underground construction project is chosen as a case study. This study will focus on the effects of mesh generation, initial input of ground condition and the constitutive soil models. The geotechnical conditions were carried out based on soil investigation report. The parameters of constitutive models were determined and calibrated against the laboratory testing results. Finally, all finite element analysis results are compared with the real field investigations.
Keywords: Excavation, Tunnelling, Finite element method, MRT, Bangkok clay.