Numerical investigation of the instability of dry granular bed induced by water leakage

Abstract

AbstractUnderground pipe defects or cracks under transport infrastructure can cause water leakage to upper soil layers (e.g. subgrade and capping), inducing local cavities or even failure of overlying road/railway formation. Although numerous studies on the instability of granular beds induced by injected water have been conducted, most of them focused on the behaviour of saturated granular beds, while research on dry granular beds is still limited. This paper aims to address this gap using a numerical model coupling volume of fluid method with discrete element method. We observed that dry granular beds go through three distinct regimes as water jet velocity increases including stationary, stable deformation with heave and fluidisation. However, the flow velocities required to deform and fluidise dry granular beds are significantly higher than those required for saturated beds. Increasing granular bed thickness can alter its failure mechanism from full depth to localised erosion, leading to cavity formation around pipe cracks prior to the bed fluidisation. The gravitational and frictional components of granular mass are identified as two main resisting forces of dry granular beds against water jet force, evidenced by the increase of critical jet velocities as particle density and friction coefficient increase. Nevertheless, the moblised zone of granular mass is practically independent of both the buried depth of dry granular beds.