Long-term stability of large span caverns is earnest but poorly understood in preservation of cultural relics.The life span of huge caverns is difficult to extrapolate from short period of monitoring or laboratory tes...Long-term stability of large span caverns is earnest but poorly understood in preservation of cultural relics.The life span of huge caverns is difficult to extrapolate from short period of monitoring or laboratory testing.A huge ancient quarry with 21 caverns whose original status is well kept over 1400 years was found in Tiantai County of South China.One of the caverns has an 81 m span which is far beyond the 50 m expectation on current knowledge.The tension at the core of long stability is the excavation speed versus deliberation.Here we show a unique technique of Digging Holes for Quarrying Vertical Flagstone(DQF)invented by ancestors to ensure the safety,which is much smarter compared to blasting and casting technique that commonly used after the Industrial Revolution.展开更多
基金support by the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection(SKLGP2011K007)Chengdu University of Technology,the Key Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(KZZD-EW-05-02)+2 种基金by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(Nos.40972198,41172269)support is also from the Chinese Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Project under Grant No.2010CB732001Help provided by Master Chang Shen,Long Fu of Heidong CiEn Temple,and Mr.He Wantong during field investigations is thankfully acknowledged.
文摘Long-term stability of large span caverns is earnest but poorly understood in preservation of cultural relics.The life span of huge caverns is difficult to extrapolate from short period of monitoring or laboratory testing.A huge ancient quarry with 21 caverns whose original status is well kept over 1400 years was found in Tiantai County of South China.One of the caverns has an 81 m span which is far beyond the 50 m expectation on current knowledge.The tension at the core of long stability is the excavation speed versus deliberation.Here we show a unique technique of Digging Holes for Quarrying Vertical Flagstone(DQF)invented by ancestors to ensure the safety,which is much smarter compared to blasting and casting technique that commonly used after the Industrial Revolution.
