DOI: 10. 7672 / sgjs2026010043
The risk of shield tunneling in composite strata is high, which often induces excessivedeformation or collapse of the tunnel face. Taking the upper⁃soft and lower⁃hard composite strata inShenzhen as an example, based on an interval of Shenzhen Metro Line 11, Phase II, the influence ofshield tunneling support pressure on the stability of the tunnel face was explored through fine numericalsimulation, and the differences between the two typical strata of upper⁃soft and lower⁃hard and full⁃softwere analyzed. Firstly, based on the limit principal tensile strain theory of soil, the Python program wascompiled to realize the automatic extraction of the shape and volume of the plastic zone in front of thetunnel face in the ABAQUS numerical simulation results and compared with the theoretical solution. Thevolume ratio of the plastic zone in front of the tunnel face decreases first and then increases with thesupport reaction ratio. For the fully soft strata, when the support pressure ratio is 0. 62~1. 42, the frontof the tunnel face is more stable. When the support pressure ratio of the upper soft and lower hard stratais 0. 64~1. 76, the face of the tunnel is relatively stable.