Study on the Deformation of Filling Bodies in a Loess Mountainous Area Based on InSAR and Monitoring Equipment

Abstract

Several land-creation projects, such as the Lanzhou New Area (LNA), have been undertaken in China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative to bring more living space to the local people in loess areas. However, undisturbed loess and remolded loess have different mechanical characteristics, which may influence the stability of the filling process. Therefore, we monitored the deformation through InSAR and field monitoring to investigate the deformation characteristics and their causes. We obtained the horizontal and vertical displacements, internal deformation, water content, and pressure, according to the air–space–ground integrated monitoring technique. The results show that stress and deformation increase rapidly during construction. Deformation in different places is different during the winter: (1) for vertical displacement, uplift is present in the cut area, settlement is present in the fill area, and heterogeneity is evident in other areas; (2) for horizontal displacement, the expansion state is present in the filling area and the compression state is present at the boundary. Laboratory tests show that the difference in soil compression properties is one of the reasons for these deformation characteristics. Additionally, the difference in volumetric water content and permeability coefficient may trigger different mechanical properties on both sides of the boundary. All the evidence indicates that the boundary region is critical for filling projects. It is also necessary to install monitoring equipment to observe deformation. When abnormal deformations appear, we should take measures to control them.