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...

Hindcasting of levee failures: Deterministic and probabilistic methods

In the last century, approximately 100,000 people lost their lives during a flood event and over 1.4 billion people were affected. As the population and economic activities grow in flood-prone areas and the frequencies and intensities of flood events increase due to climate change, damage due to flooding is expected to increase. To limit and...

Verification of an XFEM Based Slope Stability Analysis Method

There are multiple numerical methods for analysing the stability of slopes. Commonly used methods for assessing the slope stability are the slip surface method, strength reduction methods or methods based on load increments. What those methods have in common is that the stability of a slope is assessed by a factor of safety or critical stability...

Enhancing reliability of dikes: An approach for assessing benefits of pore pressure monitoring and pressure relief wells in spatially variable soils

The Netherlands is a country prone to flooding. Recent assessments led to the insight that protection levels of many flood defences should be increased. Integrating reinforcement measures is a difficult task as many dikes are situated in densely populated areas. Conventional reinforcement measures include berm construction or the implementation...

Interaction between the failure mechanisms backward erosion piping and slope instability: Identification and quantification of interactions between failure mechanisms of a levee

With the shift of the safety standards for levees from exceedance probability (standard 1996) to flooding probability (new standard), the part of the levee failure process after the initial occurrence of a failure mechanism becomes more important for the calculation of the strength and thus, reliability of the levee cross-section. Interactions...

Forensic Analysis of Levee Failures: The Breitenhagen Case

Forensic analysis of past failures is valuable to improve our understanding of levee behavior. In this article a new systematic approach of forensic analysis for levee failures is proposed and applied to the Breitenhagen levee breach that occurred along the river Saale in Germany in 2013. The purpose of this study is to identify the cause of the...