Abstract: The interaction between the lining and surrounding rock of a tunnel was taken as a contact problem. On the basis of the principle of virtual work for deformable body, a finite element method for the contact problem was proposed and the procedure for solving an elasto-plastic contact problem was given, especially focusing on the technique to deal with the penetrating contact status,i.e.two contact bodies penetrate each other. In the end, two illustrated examples—one is two nesting thick cylinders subjected to internal pressure and the other is a shield-driven metro tunnel, were solved with this method successfully.