Evolution law of road collapse induced by pipeline leakage under the action of water immersion and soil loss

Abstract

The number of urban road collapse accidents is sharply increasing. In particular, the leakage of underground pipelines often leads to collapse accidents, seriously threatening the operation of a city and the safety of people and property. To evaluate soil instability caused by road collapse induced by underground pipeline leakage, we adopted a systematic research approach of experiment-theory-simulation-verification to elucidate the evolution law of collapse and provide the technical support for prevention and control. A physical model test platform integrated with a synchronous light-pressure-magnetic-electric-mass monitoring system was established to simulate the entire process of road collapse induced by pipeline leakage using key test data, such as soil density, settlement deformation, particle migration, and pore pressure. Based on the test phenomena, a soil mechanical model considering particle skeleton settlement was developed, and the quantitative relationships between the soil density and parameters, including the settlement amount, seepage force, and stiffness coefficient, were derived. The criterion for identifying soil instability was the point where the density of the clay drops to zero under the condition of pipeline leakage causing road collapse. Based on this criterion, the critical deformation amount and critical strain condition of the road were determined. This criterion was integrated to establish a fluid-solid coupling numerical model to enable coordinated computation using fast Lagrangian analysis of continua in 3D, particle flow code in 3D, and a computational fluid dynamics flow field module, thereby achieving a full-process simulation from mesoscopic particle migration to macroscopic collapse failure. Comparative verification in the use of test data, theoretical calculations, and numerical simulation results showed that the maximum error between the theoretical and measured values of soil density during the erosion and infiltration stages was only 5.4%. The numerical model showed high consistency with the physical experiment in terms of macro- and mesoscopic characteristics, such as the formation of cavity-like run-off channels, cavity development, collapse sliding, and particle migration laws. This study clarified the internal mechanism of road collapse induced by pipeline leakage, providing scientific and theoretical methods and technical support for early warning, prediction, prevention, and control projects of urban road collapse, thereby demonstrating significant academic value and engineering application prospects.

Keywords

Soil instability / Density drop / Discrimination criterion / Fluid-solid coupling / Numerical model / Road collapse

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