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Experimental study on the erosion morphology of fine sand under converging flow considering the impact of soil effective stress

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Abstract

The leakage of shield tunnels built in confined aquifers of silt or fine sand may result in the erosion of soil. Due to the loss of ground support, significant distortions of the tunnel structure may arise. As an initial insight into the mechanisms driving disaster chains, the erosion morphology of silt or fine sand under converging flow should be made clear first. In this study, a series of laboratory tests were performed to investigate the erosion morphology of fine sand under converging flow and its spatiotemporal evolution. Notably, for consistency with practical engineering, the initial effective stress of the soil was also considered. The initial results indicated that the erosion process may involve the soil arching effect due to the presence of soil effective stress. On this basis, tests with two leakage points were conducted. It was found that successively opening the two leakage points may lead to a larger erosion area of superposition when compared with the case of simultaneously opening two leakage points.

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Data availability

Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41630641).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Gang Zheng, Zhitong Chen, Tianqi Zhang, Ke Wang & Yu Diao

Authors
  1. Gang Zheng
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  2. Zhitong Chen
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  3. Tianqi Zhang
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  4. Ke Wang
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  5. Yu Diao
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Correspondence to Tianqi Zhang.

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Zheng, G., Chen, Z., Zhang, T. et al. Experimental study on the erosion morphology of fine sand under converging flow considering the impact of soil effective stress. Acta Geotech. 19, 1129–1135 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-01985-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-023-01985-3

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