The effect of interactions between failure mechanisms on the reliability of flood defenses
Johannes C. Pol (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences, HKV Lijn in Water)
Paulina Kindermann (HKV Lijn in Water)
Mark G. van der Krogt (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences, Deltares)
Vera M. van Bergeijk (University of Twente)
Guido Remmerswaal (Deltares, TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Willem Kanning (Deltares, TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Sebastiaan N. Jonkman (TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
Matthijs Kok (HKV Lijn in Water, TU Delft - Civil Engineering & Geosciences)
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Abstract
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 on reliability using a Monte Carlo-based quantification method. We provide simple examples and an application to levee failure due to landward slope instability and backward erosion piping (BEP). The examples show that the largest interaction effects are expected when the trigger mechanism is relatively likely to occur and the affected mechanism has a relatively large contribution to the system reliability. For the studied levee example, interactions between slope instability and BEP increased the failure probability up to a factor 4. Implications for the assessment and design of flood defenses are discussed.
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