Backward erosion piping (BEP) poses a threat to the stability of water-retaining structures. This can lead to severe erosion and collapse of embankments. A novel economically appealing measure against BEP is the coarse sand barrier (CSB). The CSB is a trench filled with coarse sand that is placed below the blanket layer on the landward side of the embankment, which prevents the pipe from developing upstream when it encounters the CSB. Inclusion of a CSB creates a vertically layered sand, which is the situation that can also exist in practice but is different from traditional BEP tests with one homogeneous sand. This paper presents new observations and measurements in medium-scale laboratory tests. 3D measurements of the pipe depth and dimensions are presented and analysed. This analysis indicates how the pipe dimensions evolve during the piping process and shows the erosion mechanism for BEP in vertically layered sands. The findings demonstrate the significance of three-dimensional study of the pipe rather than two dimensions. The pipe depth, width and depth-to-width ratios at the pipe tip in critical erosion stages are measured and presented. In the presented tests, two different erosion behaviours (stepwise pipe progression until failure and straight failure) are found and analysed with respect to possible influential parameters. Higher head drops and flow rates are found in tests with straight failure at the stage before progression. A linear relationship between the hydraulic conductivity contrast (kc) and the critical head drops (hc) is found and observations are used to investigate deviations from the line.
Land, Sea and Human Effort was the central theme of the 28th IGU Congress in The Hague, The Netherlands. This volume contains the key-note addresses highlighting this central theme. Three major issues regarding low-land coasts came to the fore: land-use, environmental quality and safeguarding of the land. An interesting question is whether the concentration of human activities in large urban nodes will continue, or that such nodes and hierarchies will no longer structure our world, because of the ever-increasing importance of all means of communication and transport, as indicated by Johnston. Functions may disperse to specialised environments. A similar specialisation may be encountered in e.g. the development of tourism in the coastal zone. As Gormsen has elucidated, tourism has over time extended in a sequence of spatial peripheries. Consequently, phases in development may be identified with a growing impact and participation of local tourism interwoven with international growth. The environmental quality of coastal zones is seriously under threat, due to ever-increasing population pressure and human exploitation. The major problems are pollution and the availability of good quality water. Oudshoorn explored the worlds resources of drinking water, indicating the great need for political awareness of this huge problem. Cross-sectoral planning is advocated by Oudshoorn, even if water management often trespasses international boundaries and the harmonisation of the planning strategies is mostly difficult. The environmental quality of the coastal zone is also affected by the exploitation of oil and gas resources. Odell demonstrates that the conditions for this exploitation in the North Sea are unique, especially because of the great impact of an international agreement on offshore exploitation. Planning in sea areas is becoming an issue of increasing importance as it has to cope with the many, often conflicting interests, such as shipping, fishery, mining, waste disposal in relation to environmental and ecological constraints. The safeguarding of the land against river floods and sea side storm surges under the threat of a rising sea level is another important issue in coastal low-lands. Callander reviews the present state of human influence on climatic change and the associated sea level change. As indicated by Hesselman et al. new remote sensing and associated GIS techniques have recently been developed which are a great contribution in determining the fate of the coastal zones with respect to the threats induced by natural and human activities. 相似文献
GeoJournal - Tokyo Bay lies in a tectonically very unstable area, as witnessed by many earthquakes in recent times. The obvious danger of a major earthquake in a region so densely populated and... 相似文献
Backward erosion piping (BEP) is a failure mechanism that can affect the safety of water-retaining structures. It can occur when a local anomaly on the downstream side of an embankment causes a concentration of seepage flow at that location. Shallow pipes may then form, progressing in the upstream direction and leading to a collapse of the water-retaining structure. A novel and economically appealing measure against BEP is the coarse sand barrier (CSB), which is now being developed in a multiscale experimental programme in the Netherlands. The method involves placing a trench filled with coarse sand below the blanket layer on the downstream side of the embankment. The CSB prevents the upstream progression of the pipe and significantly enhances resistance to BEP. This paper presents medium-scale laboratory tests involving a range of sands, barrier depths and relative densities. The piping process and the observations of pipe progression in the presence of a CSB are presented, followed by a conceptual model. The presence of a CSB changed the erosion pattern. It resulted in pipe formation perpendicular to the flow direction over the entire width of the barrier before the barrier was damaged. The findings also demonstrate the effect of material properties on pipe initiation, progression and pipe depth. Measurements of the pipe depth are presented and analysed, revealing the significance of pipe depth for understanding the piping process. This analysis shows considerable erosion in the downstream background sand and demonstrates that erosion profiles and measured pipe depths are significantly larger than in BEP tests without a CSB.
Hurricane- or storm-generated swell waves may cause erosion and deposition along coasts which are situated thousands of kilometers outside the generating wind field. Marked beach erosion, caused by such swell waves, was observed along the micro-tidal west coast of Aruba. During the process of erosion a swash bar was formed, which moved up-beach during the waxing part of the swell event. The swash bar welded to the beach during the waning part of the event. Rapid sedimentation occurred on the upper beach. Finally, recovery of the beach was observed. The formation of a swash bar was attributed to an erosive, dissipative interval of a normally accretionary reflective beach. The sedimentary structures, although generally in line with observations on other beaches, show several peculiar characteristics: (1) the great thickness of the laminae in these calcareous sands; (2) the succession of low-angle sigmoidal and tangential sets in the swash bar; (3) the relatively steep erosional lower set boundaries and the wedge-shaped lamination in the successive stages of beach recovery; and (4) the several types of deformation structures. 相似文献
Acta Geotechnica - Fluidization, in the geotechnical engineering context, is a failure mechanism that can occur during piping, leakage in distribution pipes or leakage through the sheet pile walls... 相似文献
