Abstract
Sinkholes are geo-hazards which can form suddenly without humanly visible pre-indication from soil surface settlement. An early warning system located below ground would enable to detect sinkhole-induced settlement before it reaches the surface, preventing possible damage to infrastructure and protecting lives. This paper focuses on the use of Distributed Fiber Optic Sensing (DFOS) as a solution for early detection of sinkhole formation. A series of small-scale experiments in controlled conditions are used to simulate the formation of a sinkhole. Fiber optics cables are laid in the soil specimen, and strains are collected using the LUNA ODiSi 6100 analyzer. The soil movements are observed through a Perspex window, collected with a camera and analyzed using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV). Results indicate the ability of DFOS in detecting soil movements and underline the typical signature strain profile expected during sinkhole formation, indicating that at an early stage in the sinkhole formation, horizontal movements govern the strain profile within the cable. In conclusion, our study suggested that the DFOS technology can be used to detect, locate and estimate the size of a sinkhole, even though it has not possible to monitor the real strain level in the soil, due to a lack of shear transfer at the interface between the soil and the cable.
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Acknowledgements
We are grateful to CSIC (EPSRC (EP/N021614/1) and Innovate UK (920035)) for funding and supporting this work and Dr Jennifer Schooling and Prof. Giulia Viggiani for facilitating the collaboration between the University of Naples Federico II and the University of Cambridge, which enabled Mr Gianluigi Della Ragione’s internship at CSIC within the Erasmus+ Programme. We are also thankful to the Schofield Centre and its Director, Prof. Gopal Madabhushi, for their support with the laboratory experiments. Fruitful advice and discussion with Prof. Malcolm Bolton, Prof. Sadik Oztoprak, Dr Sam Stanier and Prof. Giulia Viggiani were also very valuable for the development of this project.
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Della Ragione, G., Möller, T., Abadie, C.N., Xu, X., da Silva Burke, T.S., Bilotta, E. (2023). Fiber Optic Sensing for Sinkhole Detection in Cohesionless Soil. In: Ferrari, A., Rosone, M., Ziccarelli, M., Gottardi, G. (eds) Geotechnical Engineering in the Digital and Technological Innovation Era. CNRIG 2023. Springer Series in Geomechanics and Geoengineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34761-0_23
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