Erosion in Geomechanics Applied to Dams and Levees (PDF)

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.