Work

From wetting-front coalescence to urban road collapse: interpretable machine learning of hydro-mechanical failure under coupled rainfall and pipeline leakage

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: Urban ground collapse poses a severe threat to public safety, road operation and underground infrastructure in densely developed cities. This study investigates the hydro-mechanical failure mechanism of road collapse induced by coupled rainfall infiltration and pipeline leakage through physical model testing, finite element simulation and interpretable surrogate modelling. A validated numerical model incorporating saturation-dependent strength and stiffness degradation was used to generate 120 cases with different pipe burial depths, rainfall intensities and leakage pressures.The results indicate that collapse develops through shallow-soil pre-wetting, leakage-induced wetting-zone expansion, convergence of the upper and lower wetting fronts, and upward propagation of deformation. Leakage pressure is the dominant factor, contributing 86.42%, 87.79% and 92.77% to the variations in collapse depth, near-saturated zone area and wetting-front depth, respectively. Rainfall mainly dissipates matric suction and lowers the failure threshold, whereas burial depth regulates the wetting-front convergence and deformation-transfer path. GPR/Kriging achieved test-set (R 2 ) values of 0.997–0.998, while XGBoost-SHAP confirmed the mechanism of leakage-pressure domination, rainfall amplification and burial-depth regulation. Risk zoning further shows that increasing rainfall shifts high-risk conditions towards lower leakage pressures, particularly at intermediate burial depths. The proposed framework provides an efficient tool for identifying vulnerable pipeline sections and supporting targeted inspection and collapse prevention.

Source: Scientific Reports

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-73498-4

Authors: Liming Xue, Qiangbing Huang, Jiawei Liang, Yuxuan Gou, Jun Dong

Institution: Chang'an University

Language: English

Topic: Geotechnical Engineering and Analysis

Subfield: Civil and Structural Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Sustainable cities and communities, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,690