Influence of erosion on piping in terms of field conditions

The Shields–Darcy (SD) model by Hoffmans and Van Rijn (Citation2018) describes the resistance of hydraulic structures to backward erosion piping, which is a form of internal erosion. In the article being discussed, Hoffmans compares the SD model to the model by Sellmeijer et al. (Citation2011), focusing on field scales. This Discussion presents...

The effect of interactions between failure mechanisms on the reliability of flood defenses

Structural reliability analysis often considers failure mechanisms as correlated but non-interacting processes. Interacting failure mechanisms affect each others performance, and thereby the system reliability. We describe such interactions in the context of flood defenses, and analyze under which conditions such interactions have a large impact...

Time-dependent development of Backward Erosion Piping

Structural flood protection systems such as levees are an important component in flood risk reduction strategies. Levees can fail through various failure mechanisms; this thesis focuses on the mechanism Backward Erosion Piping (BEP) which occurs when a sandy levee foundation is eroded by groundwater flow. To assess whether a levee's reliability...

Temporal evolution of backward erosion piping in small-scale experiments

Backward erosion piping (BEP) is a form of internal erosion which can lead to failure of levees and dams. Most research focused on the critical head difference at which piping failure occurs. Two aspects have received less attention, namely (1) the temporal evolution of piping and (2) the local hydraulic conditions in the pipe and at the pipe...

Numerical interpretation of regressive localized internal erosion in a real-scale levee physical model

This paper presents the numerical interpretation of a recent experiment on a real-scale levee physical model, in order to investigate the process of Backward Erosion Piping (BEP) and validate a recently proposed finite element formulation able to model both the simultaneous processes observed in backward erosion piping, i.e. the propagation of...

Errors in finite element analysis of backward erosion piping

Backward erosion piping (BEP) is a type of internal erosion responsible for the failure of many dams and levees. BEP occurs when small, shallow erosion channels progress upstream through foundation sands beneath the structure. As analysis of BEP involves coupling two different sets of flow equations to describe the groundwater flow and...

Project Summary D3 - Time-dependent piping and interactions: A framework for safety assessment with time-dependent failure processes

Progression Rate of Backward Erosion Piping: Small Scale Experiments

Most research on backward erosion piping (BEP) focuses on the critical conditions leading to failure. This paper studies the development of piping over time once the critical conditions are exceeded, which is useful to estimate time to failure. A commonly used small scale rectangular box setup is modified in order to monitor pore pressures and...

Hoogwater 2021: Feiten en Duiding

In juli 2021 zijn grote delen van Limburg getroffen door hevige regenval en overstromingen. Ook delen van België en Duitsland overstroomden met zeer veel schade en verlies aan mensenlevens tot gevolg. Dit betrof een extreme en ongeëvenaarde gebeurtenis met enorme impact. Daarom is naar aanleiding van de overstromingen deze verkenning uitgevoerd...

Temporal Development of Backward Erosion Piping in a Large-Scale Experiment

This paper presents a large-scale backward erosion piping experiment aimed at studying the erosion rate. This temporal aspect of piping complements previous research that focused on the critical head. To study the progression rate in realistic conditions, an experiment was carried out on a 1.8 m high levee with a cohesive blanket on a sandy...

Shields-Darcy pipingmodel. Verschilanalyse met Sellmeijer en D-GeoFlow.

Verification of a Predictive Formula for Critical Shear Stress with Large Scale Levee Erosion Experiment

Apart from the soil erodibility parameter, the critical shear stress is the most important parameter in predicting erosion rates. On the basis of experiments several empirical formulas have already been de-veloped which relate the critical shear stress to soil properties. Based on these findings and supported by new large scale experiments, a...

Progression rate of backward erosion piping in laboratory experiments and reliability analysis

Backward erosion piping is an important failure mode of dikes and dams. The time required for the backward erosion process to result in dike failure is expected to be an important factor in the safety of dikes. This holds especially in coastal and estuarine areas which are dominated by storm surge, and pipes may not fully develop during a storm....

Evaluation of design hydrograph methods and probabilistic methods for estimating design water levels on the river Meuse

Design water levels are needed for the design of flood defences along the Dutch river Meuse. Current practise is that these water levels are determined by hydrodynamic simulation of a standard design hydrograph at the upstream gauging station Borgharen. The peak discharge of this synthetic hydrograph is based on a frequency analysis of the 100...