Abstract
Landslides are among the most severe natural hazards with significant impacts in human life and infrastructure. The Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) is vulnerable to landslides because of the geological environment and human activities. A centrifuge model test of a landslide with a planar sliding surface in the TGRA was conducted. Based on the multiple monitoring systems composed of a 3D laser scanner, pore water pressure transducers, particle image velocimetry and earth pressure sensors, multiphysical data were obtained. The work described here had the objective of researching the long-term deformation pattern of this kind of landslide that was subjected to periodic fluctuations in the reservoir water level. The results indicated that the failure processes were characterized by progressive retrogression and cracks caused by the reservoir drawdown. Transverse tensile cracks first appeared in the submerged zone of the slope. The front part of the slope was dominated by horizontal displacement, while the consolidation and compaction deformation in the vertical direction dominated at the mid-rear part of the slope. When the water level dropped again, the front part slid down and fell into the river, but the mid-rear part had no obvious deformation and exhibited a phenomenon of self-stabilization. Moreover, the phreatic line is a concave shape directed into the slope during reservoir filling and converts to a convex shape pointing out of the slope during reservoir drawdown. The earth pressures in the slope vary with the failure process of the landslide. Good agreement is obtained for the deformation characteristics between the experimental results and those of prototype landslides.
Highlights
Reservoir landslides have gradually become an important issue in engineering geology and geotechnical engineering after the occurrence of the Vajont landslide in Italy [1,2,3,4]
At 4050 secs, the reservoir level reached a maximum height of 33 cm, and the model had no obvious deformation in this period
The experimental results in this study show that the front of the slope slid along the original rupture zone during the second drawdown, but the mid-rear parts had no obvious deformation, which is different from the creep deformation induced by the traction of the front part during the first drawdown; further, its stability was improved after the first deformation
Summary
Reservoir landslides have gradually become an important issue in engineering geology and geotechnical engineering after the occurrence of the Vajont landslide in Italy [1,2,3,4]. The Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) has been a landslide-prone area since ancient times due to geological environment and precipitation. A large number of landslides reactivated after the impoundment of the Three Gorges Reservoir, such as the Qiangjiangping landslide, Shuping landslide and Baishuihe landslide [9,10,11,12]. These landslides are characterized by large areas and damage to property, such as causing cracks in roads and houses. The TGRA is still facing great challenges of geological hazard prevention and geological environmental protection [13,14,15], as are Xiluo Du and Xianjiaba in Southwest China [16]
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