Groundwater resources play a very important role in the sustainable development of economy and society. In order to comply with the national water resources protection policy, Beijing metro line 16 first tried to replace the traditional side pile construction method with diaphragm wall in the pilot tunnel at Kandan station, so as to achieve the dual purpose of bearing and sealing. Although the test section has achieved good results, it is still controversial whether the continuous wall construction can be carried out smoothly in a large scale in Beijing area with complex strata and low space. This paper takes the Kandan Station of Beijing Metro Line 16, the Beixinqiao Station on the west side of the Capital Airport and the Guangqumenwai Station of Beijing Metro Line 7 as representatives. The Midas software is used to numerically simulate the construction process of the diaphragm wall in the side pilot tunnel, revealing the environmental response induced by the construction of the underground diaphragm wall in the cave under the three typical stratum conditions of sandy cobble, silty clay and sand cobble -silty clay interbed in Beijing area. The results show that: 1) under the same conditions, the surface settlement caused by diaphragm wall construction in sandy cobble stratum is the smallest, and that caused by diaphragm wall construction in silty clay stratum is the largest. 2) The order of settlement value of pilot tunnel vault caused by diaphragm wall construction in the tunnel is: sandy cobble stratum < sandy cobble silty clay interbedded stratum < silty clay stratum. 3) Compared with sandy cobble-silty clay stratum and silty clay stratum, the plastic strain value and strain range of surrounding rock caused by diaphragm wall construction in pilot tunnel are the smallest, that is to say, the disturbance to surrounding soil is smaller.