As for many lagged surface collapse cases that shield crosses the sandy cobble stratum in Chengdu metro No.1 and 2 lines, lagged surface collapse mechanism in sandy pebble stratum was studied. Conditions of engineering geology about sandy cobble stratum were analyzed. Mechanical behavior of sandy pebble was obtained via large-scale tri-axial test. Discrete element method was adopted for numerical computation on lagged surface collapse mechanism. According to the tri-axial numerical test method, the relation between the micro parameters and macro parameters of the sandy pebble stratum layer in Chengdu was calibrated. The face failure of shield tunneling and upward movement of cavity was simulated by numerical calculation. When supporting pressure is small, the particles with the displacement of over 0.1 m have low contact force. The porosity of earth in the region becomes larger and its mechanical behavior becomes worse. Therefore the region can be identified as instability region. Cavity in the ground will be caused after shield tunneling. Soil arching effect is obvious under shield construction. Even though there is cavity in the ground, surface collapse will not bring about immediately. This is important reason for lagged surface collapse phenomena of shield construction in sandy pebble stratum.