The tunnel boring machine (TBM) tunnelling has been successfully applied worldwide in recent years

and TBMs provide continuous support to the tunnel face by using the freshly-excavated wet soil or slurry which completely fills up the work chamber under pressure. Under extremely unfavorable geological and hydrogeological conditions

however

face instabilities may occur. In fact

the excavation face support pressure for TBM in soft ground determines the construction safety and surface deformation. A visual platform for calculating the excavation face support pressure conveniently

TBM Studio

is constructed by computer programming based on the suggested models. In this visual platform

the influence of stratified soils can be considered. Furthermore

a comparison of the results of Alaskan way tunnel and Qianjiang tunnel by different calculation models is done

the differences between different models are revealed. In addition

the effects of the stratified soil layers’ self-stability on excavation face stability in complex strata are also discussed

demonstrating that it is crucial for determining quantitatively the relationships between the effective support pressure required and the hydraulic head in the soft ground.