When shield crossed the sandy cobble stratum in Chengdu metro line 1, ground subsidence reached as high as dozens of times. The losing stability of excavation face caused excessive ground loss. Conditions of engineering geology and hydrogeology about sandy cobble stratum in Chengdu were analyzed. Mechanical characteristics of sandy cobble were obtained via large-scale triaxial test. According to the low cohesion and heavily discrete characteristics of sandy cobble, numerical computation was conducted by discrete element method. Based on numerical simulation of the large scale triaxial test, the micro parameters of the sandy cobble were calibrated. The influence of support pressure on shield excavation face deformation, surface settlement, max horizontal displacement and stress of soil was analyzed. The results show that: 1) Collapse pattern of excavation face by numerical simulation coincides with result of centrifuge model test in sand. 2) When supporting pressure is small, contact forces of particle in front of excavation face is low. The tendency of particle flow is apparent. Since over-excavation is easily brought out, cavity in the ground is caused after shield tunneling. 3)Soil arching effect in shield construction is obvious. Shield excavation forms cavity in deep ground and obvious earth surface collapse is not observed. This is main reason for lagged settlement phenomena of shield tunneling in Chengdu.