Numerical Study of Soil Stability Above Water Mains

Numerical Study of Soil Stability Above Water Mains

Disasters caused by natural sinkholes have been a serious issue across the majority of the countries where the karst features formed due to the erosion of subsurface geological formations such as limestones and dolomite. Anthrophonic-driven sinkhole formation due to the water and sewage leakage, mining activities, underground infrastructure development started contributing to the increased number of sinkhole incidents. Water leakage from the underground water pipelines causes several issues such as scarcity of drinking water, damaging the other utilities, and critically triggers roadside sinkholes. Road-related sinkholes incidents are intensively happening in many countries in the world as evidenced by the frequent news from the media. While there has been much research on tracing and predicting the sinkholes using the latest geophysics technologies, very limited research can be found on the actual stability analysis of the soil in the risk zones. Moreover, soil blowout stability analysis was rarely carried out in the past. This thesis sets out to quantify the 'collapse' and 'blowout' stability performance of three idealised cavity shapes of horizontal, semicircular, and circular above the damaged pipe. Finite Element Limit Analysis (FELA) was used to obtain upper and lower bound solutions to the problem. The study provides useful engineering information in the form of design charts and tables for a wide range of design parameters, which would greatly assist in decision-making by practical engineers.

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