Many flood protection dams in Europe were built more than 100 years ago. These dams often do not meet current flood protection requirements due to increased level of safety requirements, higher damage potential in the valley plains and due to higher peak discharges or water levels expected with changing climatic conditions. A first series of centrifuge tests on an idealized cross-section of a flood protection dam has been carried out in the geotechnical centrifuge at TU Delft in order to study the seepage behaviour of a horizontally layered dam consisting of layers with coarse and fine-grained material. Main aspects of the testing equipment such as a specially manufactured test box which allows to simulate certain flood events of different durations and intensities are presented. Furthermore, measured values of the pore pressure during the investigated flood event, are presented and discussed in comparison to the results of finite element modelling of the dam. Finally, the influence of the hydraulic boundary conditions on the seepage behaviour in the physical and numerical modelling is critically discussed.

The profile of the undrained shear strength of kaolin clay samples has been determined using an automated shear vane device. The automated device can monitor and register the changes in the mobilised shear resistance as a function of shear strain, while merely peak undrained shear strengths of the sample can be determined using conventional vane shear tests. The clay samples were prepared using centrifuge consolidation of slurries at 30 g and 90 g. The results on the impact of different su-profiles to the load displacement curves and bearing capacities of shallow foundations which were tested at 30 g on normally consolidated and overconsolidated kaolin samples are shown. The reliability of field-vane-shear tests on borehole samples is also discussed.