Probabilistic Analysis of Velocity Distribution under Earth Embankments for Piping Investigation

Piping has been attributed as a major cause of dam and embankment failures. Current national prediction models to predict piping use the hydraulic gradient between the upstream and downstream water levels as an indicator. They are deterministic and take no account of preferential pathways. However, piping usually initiates from a discrete...

Bench-scale centrifuge testing to determine the hydraulic conductivity of clayey soils

The purpose of this research is to validate a mathematical model for flow through saturated and unsaturated porous media using a bench-scale centrifuge for an accurate determination of the hydraulic conductivity (function of the saturation degree of a soil) within a limited time at a reasonable price. The aim of this paper is to show preliminary...