Experimental and numerical investigation of backward erosion piping in heterogeneous sands

Negrinelli, G. and van Beek, V. and Ranzi, R. (2016) Experimental and numerical investigation of backward erosion piping in heterogeneous sands. In: ICSE 2016 (8th International Conference on Scour and Erosion), 12-15 September 2016, Oxford, UK.

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Abstract

Backward erosion piping is a relevant failure mechanism for water–retaining structures that determines uncertainty in residual flooding hazard and risk mapping. The occurrence of piping can be predicted using the Sellmeijer model, which is developed and validated for homogeneous granular layers. However, the subsurface encountered below levees can be far from homogeneous. Previous laboratory tests indicated a substantial increase of piping resistance in sand samples with variation of properties in the path of the pipe. In the research described in this paper the process of backward erosion piping in heterogeneous sands was investigated by means of small–scale experiments to study the influence of micro–scale and macro–scale heterogeneity. Numerical simulations of piping experiments with macro–scale heterogeneity were performed using a 2D groundwater flow model extended with a piping module and a 3D groundwater flow model.

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