Experimental investigation of the breach growth process in sand dikes

Spinewine, Benoît; Delobbe, Anne-Michèle; Elslander, L; Zech, Yves

doi:10.1201/b16998-126

Cited by 23 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…This detail notwithstanding, the fact that the water‐surface slope remains nearly constant as erosion proceeds suggests that the bed surface must be maintaining a nearly constant slope,

θ_{r}

, close to the static friction angle of the sand. A similar result has been found in other experiments with fine sand and a fixed‐volume reservoir [ Spinewine et al ., ; van Emelen et al ., ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of noncohesive earthen dams

Walder

Iverson

Godt

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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Overtopping failure of noncohesive earthen dams was investigated in 13 large-scale experiments with dams built of compacted, damp, fine-grained sand. Breaching was initiated by cutting a notch across the dam crest and allowing water escaping from a finite upstream reservoir to form its own channel. The channel developed a stepped profile, and upstream migration of the steps, which coalesced into a headcut, led to the establishment of hydraulic control (critical flow) at the channel head, or breach crest, an arcuate erosional feature that functions hydraulically as a weir. Novel photogrammetric methods, along with underwater videography, revealed that the retreating headcut maintained a slope near the angle of friction of the sand, while the cross section at the breach crest maintained a geometrically similar shape through time. That cross-sectional shape was nearly unaffected by slope failures, contrary to the assumption in many models of dam breaching. Flood hydrographs were quite reproducible-for sets of dams ranging in height from 0.55 m to 0.98 mwhen the time datum was chosen as the time that the migrating headcut intersected the breach crest. Peak discharge increased almost linearly as a function of initial dam height. Early-time variability between flood hydrographs for nominally identical dams is probably a reflection of subtle experiment-to-experiment differences in groundwater hydrology and the interaction between surface water and groundwater.

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“…This detail notwithstanding, the fact that the water‐surface slope remains nearly constant as erosion proceeds suggests that the bed surface must be maintaining a nearly constant slope,

θ_{r}

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of noncohesive earthen dams

Walder

Iverson

Godt

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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“…This slope change was also observed by Spinewine et al . [] and Frank and Hager [] for frontal dike experiments with a falling reservoir water level. The emerged part of the breach sides is steeper because the sand particles are sealed by apparent cohesion induced by negative pore water pressure [ Wei et al ., ].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overtopping induced failure of noncohesive, homogeneous fluvial dikes

Rifai

Erpicum

Archambeau

et al. 2017

Water Resources Research

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Accurate predictions of breach characteristics are necessary to reliably estimate the outflow hydrograph and the resulting inundation close to fluvial dikes. Laboratory experiments on the breaching of fluvial sand dikes were performed, considering a flow parallel to the dike axis. The breach was triggered by overtopping the dike crest. A detailed monitoring of the transient evolution of the breach geometry was conducted, providing key insights into the gradual and complex processes involved in fluvial dike failure. The breach develops in two phases: (1) the breach becomes gradually wider and deeper eroding on the downstream side along the main channel and (2) breach widening controlled by side slope failures, continuing in the downstream direction only. Increasing the inflow discharge in the main channel, the breach formation time decreases significantly and the erosion occurs preferentially on the downstream side. The downstream boundary condition has a strong influence on the breach geometry and the resulting outflow hydrograph.

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“…At the end of some tests, the three-dimensional bed bathymetry was measured with the help of a laser scanning system composed of a Nikon Ò D200 digital camera (Nikon USA Inc., Melville, NY, USA) and a Lasiris Ò red diode laser (40 mW power, 660 nm wavelength; StockerYale Inc., Salem, NH, USA). The method is similar to the one developed by Spinewine et al (2004) in a different context; it relies on a purely optical method to track the bed topography. The laser, when mounted above the channel, produced a light sheet that illuminated a thin (ca 1 mm) cross-section of the bed.…”

Section: Experimental Set-upmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bedload transport and bed resistance associated with density and turbidity currents

Sequeiros¹,

Spinewine²,

Beaubouef

et al. 2010

Sedimentology

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Turbidity currents in the ocean are driven by suspended sediment. Yet results from surveys of the modern sea floor and turbidite outcrops indicate that they are capable of transporting as bedload and depositing particles as coarse as cobble sizes. While bedload cannot drive turbidity currents, it can strongly influence the nature of the deposits they emplace. This paper reports on the first set of experiments which focus on bedload transport of granular material by density underflows. These underflows include saline density flows, hybrid saline/turbidity currents and a pure turbidity current. The use of dissolved salt is a surrogate for suspended mud which is so fine that it does not settle out readily. Thus, all the currents can be considered to be model turbidity currents. The data cover four bed conditions: plane bed, dunes, upstream‐migrating antidunes and downstream‐migrating antidunes. The bedload transport relation obtained from the data is very similar to those obtained for open‐channel flows and, in fact, is fitted well by an existing relation determined for open‐channel flows. In the case of dunes and downstream‐migrating antidunes, for which flow separation on the lee sides was observed, form drag falls in a range that is similar to that due to dunes in sand‐bed rivers. This form drag can be removed from the total bed shear stress using an existing relation developed for rivers. Once this form drag is subtracted, the bedload data for these cases collapse to follow the same relation as for plane beds and upstream‐migrating antidunes, for which no flow separation was observed. A relation for flow resistance developed for open‐channel flows agrees well with the data when adapted to density underflows. Comparison of the data with a regime diagram for field‐scale sand‐bed rivers at bankfull flow and field‐scale measurements of turbidity currents at Monterey Submarine Canyon, together with Shields number and densimetric Froude number similarity analyses, provide strong evidence that the experimental relations apply at field scale as well.

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Experimental investigation of the breach growth process in sand dikes

Cited by 23 publications

References 1 publication

Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of noncohesive earthen dams

Controls on the breach geometry and flood hydrograph during overtopping of noncohesive earthen dams

Overtopping induced failure of noncohesive, homogeneous fluvial dikes

Bedload transport and bed resistance associated with density and turbidity currents

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