Probabilistic Models for Erosion Parameters and Reliability Analysis of Earth Dams and Levees

Abstract

Probabilistic models for two soil erosion parameters needed to model the erodibility of water-retaining structures are developed. The models predict the values of the critical shear stress and the coefficient of erosion starting from other measurable soil properties.\ud The models include both noncohesive and cohesive contributions to the erosion behavior. An importance sampling simulation method is parallelized to be implemented in parallel computing resources to calibrate the models and estimate the unknown parameters using laboratory data. The probabilistic models are then used to develop fragility curves that capture the vulnerability of a typical earth dam to internal\ud erosion

Concrete gravity dams model parameters updating using static measurements

“…Focusing the attention in dam engineering field, the most interesting examples aim to determine the model parameters for the risk assessment of earth fill dams [31,32,33,34].…”

“…In this case, θ 1 represents the previously discussed shift between the reference systems. When using more than one ex-planatory functions [35,31], a stepwise deletion process can be performed in order to identify those functions which really contribute reducing the bias. In this way, the inference is not affected by information external to the observations.…”

Probabilistic models for the erosion rate in embankments and reliability analysis of earth dams

“…Wan and Fell [8] presented regression models to predict e C based on physical and geotechnical variables for soils showing non-cohesive or cohesive behavior. Andreini et al [11] presented probabilistic models for the two soil erosion parameters accounting for both non-cohesive and cohesive contributions to the erosion behavior, where the unknown parameters were calibrated using HET laboratory data [7,12,13]. Andreini et al [11] proposed also fragility curves indicating the conditional probability of erosion initiation, without addressing the evolution of the pipe enlargement in an embankment.…”

Reliability analysis of stability against piping and sliding in diversion dams, considering four cutoff wall configurations

“…These hydraulic structures are usually of low height and therefore have small reservoirs. The essential criteria governing the design of diversion dams are the concerns of stability against internal erosion and sliding [1][2][3][4][5].…”

“…In the deterministic design procedure, the provision of an adequate creep length of water beneath the dam is a key parameter for decreasing the exit hydraulic gradient. Therefore, there is no difference between the implication of a single cutoff wall or the construction of two cutoff walls at different locations, where the height of each wall is equal to half of the height of the single wall [1][2][3][4]. Although several articles have been found concerning probabilistic seepage analysis, the probabilistic assessment of different cutoff wall configurations has not yet been investigated [21][22][23][24][25][26].…”