A three-dimensional fluid-solid model, coupling high-rise building load and groundwater abstraction, for prediction of regional land subsidence

Abstract

The main factors that cause land subsidence are groundwater withdrawal and the load of high-rise buildings. Previous studies on land subsidence caused by high-rise buildings have focused on small areas. Few scholars have proposed land subsidence models that combine the effects of groundwater withdrawal and high-rise building load at a regional scale. This work was based on Biot’s consolidation theory and the nonlinear rheology theory. The soil parameters were varied in accordance with the Kozeny-Carman equation and Duncan-Zhang nonlinear model, and applied to a site in eastern China. A three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) program, fully coupling varying soil parameter values and fluid-solid characteristics of land subsidence, was coded using FORTRAN. The program was used to simulate and predict regional land subsidence and to study the coupling effects of groundwater withdrawal and high-rise building load. The results showed that the soil parameters varied in reasonable range and the trend of variation was consistent with the characteristics of soil deformation. The sum of the land subsidence under high-rise building load alone and groundwater withdrawal alone differed from land subsidence under the combined effects of groundwater withdrawal and high-rise building load. The coupling effect of land subsidence caused by high-rise building load and groundwater withdrawal was shown to be nonlinear.