Assessment of a house affected by ground movement using terrestrial laser scanning and numerical modeling

This study analyzed the internal mechanical state of houses disturbed by underground coal mining, especially those that are free from damage in subsidence areas. Traditional surveying and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) were utilized as the external monitoring methods to obtain the outside displacement of the disturbed houses. The results were then used to estimate the internal mechanical state of houses using simulation software. Three high-quality houses in Paifang Village, China were scanned using TLS in their pre- and post-mining stages. The magnitude of movement and deformation was highly related to the location of the building in the panel, which was enlarged near the center of the subsidence basin. ANSYS was used to compute the internal state of the houses with a focus on the structural columns, ring beams, and walls of the houses under changing tensile conditions. Results showed that the structural column and ring beam can resist tensile deformation, whereas the window corner was the principal point of stress concentration with potential risk of cracking. Mastering the internal stress state of undamaged buildings in mining-affected areas can help to strengthen the premaintenance of houses and guide the construction of new anti-deformation houses. The results of this work may benefit the construction of anti-deformation buildings in mining regions.