The influence of the leakage length on the initiation of backward erosion piping: (Paper and Abstract)

The earliest relation describing the risk of backward erosion piping, from Bligh in 1915, calculates an overall gradient over the dike. This gradient should be lower than a certain value depending on the material of the dike foundation for the dike to be safe. Later developments rationalize this number, showing the influence of grain size,...

Pipe measurement in small-scale backward erosion piping experiments: (Paper and Abstract)

Backward erosion piping is an important failure mechanism for water-retaining structures, a phenomenon that results in the formation of shallow pipes at the interface of a sandy or silty foundation and a cohesive cover layer. Although the pipe depth reveals a lot of information on the backward erosion process, it has never been measured...