Erosion in Geomechanics Applied to Dams and Levees

Erosion is the most common cause of failures at earth-dams, dikes and levees, whether through overtopping and overflowing, or internal erosion and piping. This book is dedicated to the phenomenon of internal erosion and piping. It is not intended to be exhaustive on the subject, but brings together some of the latest international research and advances. Emphasis is placed on physical processes, how they can be studied in the laboratory, and how test results can be applied to levees and dams. The results from several research projects in Australia, France, the Netherlands and the United States are covered by the authors. Our aim has been to share our most recent findings with students, researchers and practitioners. Understanding the failure of an earth-dam or a levee by erosion in a unified framework, whether internal erosion or surface erosion, requires continuous research in this field. We hope that the reader will gain knowledge from this book that leads to further progress in the challenging field of the safety of levees and dams. Contents 1. State of The Art on the Likelihood of Internal Erosion of Dams and Levees by Means of Testing, Robin Fell and Jean-Jacques Fry. 2. Contact Erosion, Pierre Philippe, Rémi Beguin and Yves-Henri Faure. 3. Backward Erosion Piping, Vera Van Beek, Adam Bezuijen and Hans Sellmeijer. 4. Concentrated Leak Erosion, Stéphane Bonelli, Robin Fell and Nadia Benahmed. 5. Relationship between the Erosion Properties of Soils and Other Parameters, Robin Fell, Gregory Hanson, Gontran Herrier, Didier Marot and Tony Wahl. About the Authors Stéphane Bonelli is a Research Professor at Irstea (French Environmental Sciences and Technologies Research Institute) in Aix-en-Provence, France. He has over 20 years of teaching and research experience, and has been a member of the ICOLD (International Commission on Large Dams) European Working Group on Internal Erosion since 2005. He has participated in 19 large dam reviews in France (visual inspection, monitoring data analysis and numerical modeling). His current activities include research, teaching and consultancy, focusing on soil erosion and the processes of levee breach.