Debris Flow Prevention via River Transport Capacity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Debris flow prevention designs in mountainous areas often fail to consider the main river's transport capacity, leading to blockages and secondary disasters like dammed lakes, which threaten towns and infrastructure.
Innovation Solution
A debris flow prevention method that adjusts the distribution of debris-flow substance along the way, prioritizing dredging and using the main river's transport capacity to ensure safe drainage, employing drainage works, blocking works, and deposit stopping works in a rational allocation to prevent blockages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If drainage works are used to control debris flow, then debris flow prevention is improved, but the main river may be blocked causing secondary disasters
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the parameter of debris flow magnitude control by adjusting unconsolidated soil supply and debris-flow movement from upstream to downstream. It uses material balance calculations to determine the peak discharge of debris flow that can be drained to the main river, transforming the approach from simply blocking debris flow to actively managing and distributing it along the way.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different prevention measures at different locations along the debris flow path. It rationally distributes debris-flow substance along the way, using drainage works, blocking works, and deposit stopping works in combination based on local conditions and material balance requirements, rather than applying a uniform solution throughout.
2Reliability
If blocking works are constructed to stop debris flow, then debris flow control is improved, but construction difficulty increases due to traffic inconvenience
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the debris flow prevention system into multiple components: drainage works, blocking works, and deposit stopping works. This segmentation allows the system to achieve effective debris flow control while reducing the need for large-scale blocking works that are difficult to construct in remote mountainous areas with poor accessibility.
3Reliability
If deposit stopping works are used to contain debris flow, then debris flow prevention is improved, but the area occupied increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes debris flow substance from the main flow path by distributing it along the way through drainage works and deposit stopping works. This prevents the accumulation of large volumes of debris in single locations, thereby reducing the area that would need to be occupied by large deposit stopping structures.
4Productivity
If excess drainage is implemented to control debris flow, then debris flow removal is improved, but main river blockage is aggravated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback control by calculating the material balance of debris flow and determining the peak discharge that can be safely drained to the main river based on the main river's transport capacity. This feedback mechanism prevents excess drainage that would cause blockage while ensuring sufficient removal of debris flow.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention discloses a debris-flow prevention method by controlling debris-flow magnitude and avoiding to block main river. This method first adopts the drainage works for delivering debris flow in corporation with the transport of the main river; if the drained sediment cannot be transported by the main river, the blocking works are adopted; and if the sediment still exceeds the delivering capacity, the deposit stopping works are adopted. Compared with the prior art, this invention makes full use of the main river's transport capacity, gives priority to dredging and also reasonably distributes the sediment and deploys the engineering system, so as to realize the safe discharge of debris flow, and avoid the secondary disaster of “barrier lake” caused by the blocking of main river due to excessive discharge of debris flow and fully guarantee the safety of mountain towns, major projects and infrastructure located at the mouth of debris flow gully.