Simulation experiment on sinkhole formation caused by soils disintegration and the advance-forecasting of sinkhole risk
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Simulation experiment on sinkhole formation caused by soils disintegration and the advance-forecasting of sinkhole risk Fuwei Jiang1,2 Received: 10 August 2019 / Accepted: 12 September 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Sinkholes are a common geological hazard around the world. However, it is difficult to carry out the associated indoor simulation experiments because of the complicated factors involved. Our previous research showed that sinkholes in the aerated zone caused by soil disintegration exhibit accurate critical conditions. Therefore, the kind of sinkhole formation is simulated in the paper. Before the simulate experiment, the critical value of the disintegration of clay samples is tested, which helps to control the simulation conditions. With a designed simulation apparatus, soil disintegration was conducted 70 times from October 23, 2017, to June 1, 2018, and a sinkhole formed. This experiment results indicate two developmental laws of sinkholes forming in the aerated zone. One is the forming process which has three stages, soil-void formation, soilvoid expansion, and roof collapse. Second is that the two conditions water content is less than the critical value and contact between water and soil, causing the sinkhole formation. At the forming, two conditions are clear, and can easily be monitored by the associated factors in the field where sinkholes have occurred or are about to occur. According to the principle, another simulation experiment was carried out. As a result, an advanced prediction of a sinkhole is achieved in the aerated zone. Keywords Sinkhole formation · Soil disintegration · Advance forecasting · Simulating experiment · Critical values
Introduction Karst environments, covering 20% of Earth’s land surface (Ford and Williams 1989), are prone to sinkholes. They have resulted in many casualties and a significant amount of property damage. For example, 41 sinkholes damaged 143 houses, 8 factories, and 3 commercial buildings in Liuzhou, China, on May 10, 2012 (Jiang 2019). In karst areas, the danger of sinkholes is more difficult to predict due to it happened more subtly underground. However, in clearly recognizing the process of sinkhole development, the simulate experiment can be conducted, which could lead to preventing the hazard. More so, it is not easy to simulate the process of sinkhole development. Many complex factors result in sinkholes, including hydrologic, geologic, geomorphologic, * Fuwei Jiang [email protected] 1
Schools of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Guizhou Institute of Technology, Guiyang 550003, China
Institute of Karst Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Science, Guilin 541004, China
2
anthropogenic, climatic, and hydrogeologic, among others (Waltham et al. 2005; Cahalan and Milewski 2018). Besides, sinkholes occur in different places for different reasons. For example, water ascends into confined aquifers and dissolves carbonate, leading to sinkholes in Italy’s Pontina plain, (Salvati
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