Abstract
Damage to rural buildings in mountainous regions caused by flash floods accounts for a significant proportion of economic losses from disasters. The unreinforced masonry (URM) wall is the most vulnerable structural element of rural buildings exposed to flash floods. The failure of a URM wall indicates damage to rural buildings in flash floods. Based on the yield line theory of out-of-plane damage of URM walls and the virtual work method, brittle failure criteria for URM walls under the impact of flash floods were established. According to the field investigation data of the 26 June 2020 flash flood event in Damawu Gully and the corresponding simulation results of FLO-2D, the disaster-causing process was analysed, and the failure criteria were validated. Three building parameters were identified to influence the flood-resistance of URM walls, including the mortar grade, the span-to-height ratio of the wall, and the number of floors of the rural building. The results showed that the cause of the 26 June disaster was the diversion of a 50-year flash flood into the residential community on the alluvial fan. The affected buildings were constructed with hollow blocks and lacked flood-resistance reinforcement. The critical failure depth of a URM wall restrained at the top by ring beams (RBs) under hydrostatic load conditions is 1.17 to 1.20 times greater than that of a URM wall without RBs, and the difference is even more pronounced when lower-strength mortar is used. The flood-resistance of a URM wall constructed with Mb 7.5 mortar and restrained by RBs is almost as strong as that of a URM wall constructed with Mb 20 mortar and without RBs. The span-to-height ratio of a URM wall should not be greater than 1.875 in this case. However, the flood-resistance of a URM wall with RB restraint is almost independent of the span-to-height ratio. The brittle fracture energy of masonry mortar is more crucial to the flood-resistance of 4-edge restrained URM walls if L/Z > 1.875. The flood-resistance of the URM wall of the first storey increases linearly with the number of floors. Single-storey rural buildings should be given priority to the use of high-grade masonry mortar and high-density blocks to improve flood-resistance. The failure criteria and the influence laws of building parameters on the flood-resistance of URM walls can provide references for flash flood mitigation and flood-resistance reinforcement of rural buildings in mountainous regions of Southwest China.
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Abbreviations
- B :
-
room depth of the affected building
- E :
-
Young’s modulus of elasticity of masonry mortar after setting
- E Gf :
-
brittle fracture energy absorbed by the masonry mortar during the formation of wall cracks
- Fr :
-
Froude number
- f d, f s :
-
tensile and compressive strength of masonry mortars
- f n :
-
the number of floors above the ground floor of the building
- G f :
-
brittle fracture energy required to form a crack per unit area of wall surface
- g :
-
gravitational acceleration, equal to 9.8 m/s−2
- H :
-
height of affected buildings
- h, h max :
-
flow depths at affected buildings and maximum flow depth in each cell in the simulation of FLO-2D
- h 1, h 2 :
-
maximum depth and run-up height indicated by flood marks on the affected building
- h f :
-
critical depth of flash flooding in case of failure to URM walls
- h w :
-
flash flood depth for calculating wall stability
- h u :
-
height of hollow blocks
- i :
-
rainfall intensity in the calculated area during the FLO-2D simulation
- L :
-
length of affected URM wall
- L f :
-
total length of cracks in the wall panel
- l u :
-
length of hollow blocks
- N 1, N 2, N 3, N 4 :
-
force on top of each block in case of wall failure
- n :
-
Manning’s roughness coefficient for the FLO-2D simulation
- n o :
-
pressure on the top of URM walls
- P :
-
probabilities corresponding to different return periods
- p(z):
-
flash flood pressure on the wall at a height of z from the ground
- Q m :
-
maximum peak discharges for flood processes with different return periods
- S fx, S bx, S fy, S by :
-
friction and channel bed slope in the x and y directions in the FLO-2D simulations
- Ŝ :
-
ratio of the actual flood impact pressure on the URM wall to the hydrostatic pressure
- t :
-
moment since the start of runoff production at the tributary confluence or thickness of the URM wall
- t m :
-
moment when the maximum peak discharge occurs for different return periods
- t j :
-
thickness of mortar joints
- u, v :
-
the average velocity along the depth in the x and y direction, respectively
- v max :
-
maximum velocities of flash floods at damaged buildings
- W 1, W 2, W 3, W 4 :
-
weight of each block after wall failure
- W f, W s :
-
failure work done to URM walls by flash flood impact loads, stabilising work of the URM wall
- Z :
-
height of the URM wall
- α :
-
angle between the diagonal crack in the wall and the vertical direction
- α c :
-
contribution ratio of brittle fracture energy to the wall stability work
- γ w, γ o :
-
weights of the URM wall and flash flood, respectively
- δ 1, δ 2, δ 3, δ 4 :
-
horizontal displacement of each block at the time of failure to the URM wall
- ε dmax :
-
ultimate tensile strain in masonry mortar for URM wall failure
- ε H,ε v :
-
maximum tensile strain in the horizontal and vertical directions for URM walls, respectively
- θ 1 :
-
rotation angle corresponding to blocks 1, 4 under flash flood action
- θ 3 :
-
rotation angle corresponding to blocks 2, 3 under flash flood action
- ξ 1, ξ 2, ξ 3, ξ 4 :
-
vertical displacement of each block at the time of failure to the URM wall
- ξ N1, ξ N2, ξ N3 :
-
vertical displacement of the top of each block at the time of failure to the URM wall.
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFD1100401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41925030), the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant No. 2019YJ0009), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42007270), the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2022379), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Light of West China Program.
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Si, Gw., Chen, Xq., Chen, Jg. et al. Failure criteria of unreinforced masonry walls of rural buildings under the impact of flash floods in mountainous regions. J. Mt. Sci. 19, 3388–3406 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7491-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-022-7491-6