Evolution Mechanism and Control Method of Engineering Disasters Under Complex Environment

As the result of resource exploitation and underground space development, the engineering disasters appear, including landslides, tunnel collapses, earthquakes, debris flow and urban facility failures, which may lead to substantial economic damages and loss of lives. The engineering challenges from the geotechnical engineering have attracted wide attention. A large number of engineering disasters, like water gushing, sand inrush, seepage damage, gas leakage and gas explosion, are triggered due to the complex environment such as high water or gas stress, seepage effect and fluid-solid interaction. In order to control the engineering disaster, the primary task to be solved is to reveal the engineering disaster initiation and evolution mechanism induced under complex environment.

The effects of the complex environment on the geotechnical engineering and geological activities are multifold and still unclear. The geotechnical materials are typical multiphase porous medium, of which the mechanical performances are affected by the water and gas. The hydro-mechanical coupling process of saturated and unsaturated geotechnical materials under special engineering or climate conditions, such as heavy rainfall, dewatering, cyclic freeze-thaw and water erosion, may affect the hydro-mechanical properties of the ground and retaining structures, potentially inducing facility failures and engineering disasters. Thus, understanding the coupling process is necessary for disaster prevention and structure failure control. Large numbers of research work on the disaster prevention and control have been presented attributed to the efforts of environmental and geotechnical experts. However, research into failure evolution mechanism, FSI model, mathematical coupled theory, and disaster control measurement is still limited. Describing the hydro-mechanical coupling model and failure evolution is challenging. Therefore, new theoretical methods, testing techniques, and numerical models need to be developed to reveal the engineering disaster mechanisms and complex mechanical behaviors in civil and geotechnical engineering.

With the aim of presenting and discussing recent studies, new methods, case studies, and review articles that describe the current state of the issue, this Special Issue welcomes submissions with a focus on the current challenges related to engineering disaster control methods and failure evolution mechanism studies, when possible, with the complex conditions in geotechnical engineering. Papers submitted on new and emerging topics within the discipline are also encouraged. Theoretical papers are welcomed, and practice-oriented papers and computational method papers are particularly encouraged. Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
• Failure mechanisms, control measurement, and affecting factors exploration of engineering disasters in civil engineering related to buildings and infrastructure
• Stability analysis of tunnel excavation in multi-field coupling environment
• Coupled hydraulic-mechanical properties of geotechnical materials under complex geofluid condition
• Seepage effects on deep excavation, tunneling and reinforced soil
• Monitoring, spatial-temporal prediction modelling, and early warning of facilities failures using advanced measurement system
• New computational methods investigating the failure evolution process, not limited to finite-element (FEM), finite-difference (FDM), and discrete-element methods (DEM)
• Hydro-mechanical model and computational method of landslides