Numerical Simulation of Water and Mud Inrush Processes in Mountain Tunnels Using Coupled Lbm-Dem

Studying the mechanism of sudden water inrush and mud flow in mountain tunnels is crucial for implementing preventive measures. In addition, tunnel excavation through a fault or fractured zone can easily trigger sudden water inrush or mudflow. In the paper, the coupled lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) and discrete element method (DEM) were used to simulate the process of water and mud inrush in mountain tunnels. Tunnel mud burst failure and water inrush are essentially a fluid-solid coupling process. The two-dimensional Boltzmann method for fluids and DEM for particles were introduced. The coupled LBMDEM boundary adopts the immersed moving boundary method. For the water inrush process, the presence of water was predicted using advanced geological prediction of seismic waves in the tunnel. A numerical model was established to reproduce the flow of water particles in karst pipelines. The model had a length of 7 cm, a width of 4 cm, and consisted of 100 particles. For the mud inrush process, a numerical model was established with dimensions of 5 cm in length and 4 cm in height. In this model, 720 particles were randomly generated. The results indicated that the evolution process of the three consecutive stages of