RTRI REPORT Mar. 2007
PAPERS

Detection of Ground Displacement in Advance by Determining Ions in the Groundwater

Hiroyuki SAKAI


  To predict the occurrence of landslide on railroad tracks, a system has been created with chemical sensors to use public telecommunication services. The ground displacement or distortion caused by a landslide can be forecasted prior to its occurrence by monitoring the chemical composition of the groundwater originating from the landslide area. This is because the chemical reaction continuously taking place between soil particles and groundwater changes the groundwater composition when the deep and internal virgin ground is displaced on such a small scale even while it cannot instrumentally be measured. Thus, the groundwater composition is monitored to find the change, which appears in advance of landslide. The information on the groundwater composition detected by chemical sensors continuously is processed and transmitted through telecommunication services to engineers in charge of track maintenance and train dispatchers to make them aware of risky incidents anticipated in the immediate future.


* Full papers of RTRI Report are written in Japanese.

Copyright (c) 2007 Railway Technical Research Institute