Resistance to erosion of lime treated soils and perspectives for coastal dikes: (Paper and Abstract)

Fluvial and coastal dikes are the primary protection for human life from natural hazards like flooding or wave action. To build these hydraulic earthworks requires many materials with specific performances in terms of workability, mechanical strength, permeability, resistance to erosion, etc. Very often, local material does not meet requirements...

Large triaxial device for suffusion erodibility and mechanical behavior characterization of coarse soils: (Paper and Abstract)

Suffusion, one of the main internal erosion processes, selectively erodes the fine particles which move through the voids formed by the coarser particles. In the literature, the mechanical consequences of suffusion on soil were investigated by several researchers. However, no general conclusion can be drawn because the already published results...

Internal erosion in dams and dikes: a comparison: (Paper and Abstract)

Dams and dikes are both water-retaining earth embankments. These are vulnerable to internal erosion but specific differences lead to varying vulnerabilities to different types of internal erosion: • Dams are usually zoned, with potential filtering capability to arrest piping if it is initiated, while dikes are more commonly unzoned and incapable...

Evaluation of Empirical Methods for Estimating Breaching Parameters of Dikes

Dike breaching parameters are important to support dike flood risk management, and can be estimated rapidly using empirical models. Due to the lack of dike specific models, sometimes models for man-made dams were used without validation. This paper compares relevant factors of dike, man-made dam and landslide dam breaches. With the aid of two...

Grasping the Heterogeneity of the Subsurface: using Buildup Scenarios for Assessing Flood-Protection Safety

The subsurface plays an important role when assessing flood risk and its build up has to be known in considerable detail to properly determine the chance of flood-protection failure. Currently, the subsurface below flood-protections is often characterized by geotechnical cross sections that are constructed using e.g. cone penetration tests (CPTs...

Flood Safety on Dikes with Wind Turbines

Many governments want to realize wind power, because it is a technology that promotes sustainable energy. That is why there is need for locations for wind farms (groups of wind turbines). Dikes are good locations for wind farms, because of favourable wind conditions, the absence of cultivation and the presence of road infrastructure. However,...

Application of Fragility Curves in Operational Flood Risk Assessment

The aim of this article is to present and discuss fragility curves that were derived for numerous dikes in the Netherlands within the Dike Data Service Centre (DDSC) initiative. A fragility curve of a dike is a mapping from the set of loads, acting on the dike, to the set of conditional dike failure probabilities. The DDSC is a platform around a...

Determination of Spatial Variability in d70 Grain Size Values Using High Density Site Measurements

Research to the failure mechanism piping (internal, backward erosion) in the Netherlands shows that the dikes require costly berms to meet the required safety standards. According to the Sellmeijer piping-formula, the d70 (70%-quantile of the grain size distribution by weight) is an important parameter in the resistance against piping. Therefore...