<p>This paper investigates the variation of internal forces induced by earthquakes in circular tunnels constructed in the soil of clay layers at different depths and the compatibility of existing dynamic analysis methods. Therefore, two-dimensional full dynamic analyses were carried out with seven earthquake input motions at three depths. Subsequently, pseudo-static analysis displacement-based and force-based methods have been performed. The results obtained from the full dynamic analysis were compared with those obtained from the pseudo-static analysis, which applied a displacement-based and force-based method. According to the findings of this study, as the tunnel depth increases, the axial forces on the tunnel lining increase because of the increasing overburden stress. Although bending moments and shear forces tend to decrease with depth, the maximum internal forces occurred in the tunnel cross-section located within stratified soil due to the varying movement velocities of different soil layers. The computed internal forces within the tunnel lining, derived from numerical analyses and their distributions, vary according to the soil strength parameters, tunnel depth, and applied dynamic loads. The phenomenon of ovalization within tunnels manifests consistently across all the dynamic analyses. Compared to full dynamic analyses, pseudo-static analyses tend to underestimate internal forces.</p>