ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Ground Sediment Transport Model
and Numerical Simulation
Jichao Sun1,2
More details
Hide details
1School of Water Resources and the Environment, China University of Geosciences,
Beijing, 100083, China
2Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Wisconsin,
Milwaukee 53211, United States
Submission date: 2014-09-18
Acceptance date: 2015-11-26
Publication date: 2016-07-22
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2016;25(4):1691-1697
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Geological disasters caused by city ground subsidence are typical examples of soil failure, which
significantly impact urban planning and development. The sediment transport in the soils leads to the
increasing porosity of soils, and changes the elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio, thus the carrying capacity
of the soil is reduced and ground subsidence appears. Therefore, the sediment transfer and loss driven by the
underground water becomes a key reason for ground subsidence. Studies in this area thus present significant
meanings. In this paper, mutual effects between the sediment particles and groundwater seepage are analyzed.
We partially fix sediments in soils. Using the numerical simulation, hydraulic pressure is applied to scour
so as to study the regular patterns of sediment transport in the soil mass: as time extended, the porosity in
soils is gradually enlarged, tending to be stable; as more particles are fixed, porosity is reduced. It is also
found that fixed particles, with a part of free sediment particles, form some new fixed sediment structures
that hinder the transfer of the free sediment. In addition, parameters like scour time, hydraulic pressure,
and the porosity evolution equation relating to the amount of fixed sediment particles are acquired. Findings
of this research are expected to provide references for predicting, forecasting, and treating ground subsidence,
which is led by sediment transport from the perspective of the soil mass porosity evolution.