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<p>Water pipeline leakage can trigger sand fluidization and ultimately lead to ground collapse. Prior research has largely focused on continuously graded sands under saturated conditions, overlooking gap-graded soils and unsaturated scenarios. Existing analytical models typically assume bounded fluidization domains, which do not capture the unconfined characteristics of leakage-induced flow. This study presents a momentum-based analytical solution for estimating the minimum flow rate required to initiate unbounded sand fluidization due to pipeline leakage. The formulation accounts for both continuously and gap-graded sands under different water levels. Key parameters include sand particle size, soil cover depth, water level, and leakage orifice width. The solution is validated through model tests. Results show that the initiation flow rate increases with larger particle size, greater cover depth, and lower water levels, while leakage orifice size has minimal influence. Additionally, increasing the horizontal-to-vertical seepage velocity ratio significantly raises the initiation threshold for coarser sands (2 ~ 5&#xa0;mm), with a lesser effect on finer sands (0.5 ~ 1&#xa0;mm).</p>

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Momentum-based criteria for initiating unbounded sand fluidization induced by pipeline leakage

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月16日

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  • Cungang Lin,
  • Dingwei Li,
  • Junjie Zheng,
  • Jim Shiau,
  • Cheng Peng

摘要

Water pipeline leakage can trigger sand fluidization and ultimately lead to ground collapse. Prior research has largely focused on continuously graded sands under saturated conditions, overlooking gap-graded soils and unsaturated scenarios. Existing analytical models typically assume bounded fluidization domains, which do not capture the unconfined characteristics of leakage-induced flow. This study presents a momentum-based analytical solution for estimating the minimum flow rate required to initiate unbounded sand fluidization due to pipeline leakage. The formulation accounts for both continuously and gap-graded sands under different water levels. Key parameters include sand particle size, soil cover depth, water level, and leakage orifice width. The solution is validated through model tests. Results show that the initiation flow rate increases with larger particle size, greater cover depth, and lower water levels, while leakage orifice size has minimal influence. Additionally, increasing the horizontal-to-vertical seepage velocity ratio significantly raises the initiation threshold for coarser sands (2 ~ 5 mm), with a lesser effect on finer sands (0.5 ~ 1 mm).