• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.11-21
• /
• 2015

According to the damage investigation in 2002, the failures of river levee were caused by overflow, erosion, and unstable body conditions due to piping, inappropriate embanking materials, and poor compaction. Especially, overflow was identified as a main reason that induces levee failure by 39.5% from the distribution of failure types. The major parameters, such as levee collapsing angle (${\theta}$), levee collapsing rate (k) affect inundation velocity and area size during the analysis of inundation modeling, however, domestic research effort on this area is still insufficient. In this paper authors conducted levee failure experiments of 4 levee height types, 0.20 m, 0.25 m, 0.30 m, and 0.40 m based on theassumption of Froude Similarity (${\lambda}_{Fr}=1$). As a result, the authors suggested a levee failure mechanism according to the levee heights (H), a collapse extension lengthwhich is around, levee collapse angle (${\theta}$), levee collapse rate (k).

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.41-52
• /
• 2017

This research conducted the two types of model tests to examine the failure parameters by levee overflow, those were the pilot-scale levee (model height 0.4~0.8 m) and real scale levee (model height 1.0 m). The procedure of levee failure by overflow was succeeded to the following three steps: At first step, the local scouring on levee slope was happened and the overflow velocity was increased slowly. At second step, the enlarged scouring surface and the rapid overflow velocity were succeeded. At last, the levee section was broken totally and the overflow velocity was decreased because of the wide failure surface of levee. The levee failure angle (${\theta}$) was appeared bigger than slope failure angle of Rankine earth pressure. The enlarged levee height (H) made the faster overflow velocity (${\upsilon}$) of the levees, therefore additional tractive force was applied to it, futhermore the failure angle (${\theta}$) and failure surface (A) were enlarged. Because the sand sample for pilot-scale and real scale tests had the same diameter, the critical scouring velocity of each type was also the same, and the scouring properties were governed by variation of overflow velocity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.33 no.2
• /
• pp.155-165
• /
• 2023

Hurricane Katrina swept New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, in 2005, causing more than 1,000 fatalities and severe damage to the flood protection system. Recovery activities are complete, however, clarifying failure mechanisms and devising resilient and cost-effective retrofitting techniques for the flood protection system are still of utmost importance to enhance the general structural integrity of water retaining structures. This study presents extensive centrifuge test results to find various failure mechanisms and effective retrofitting techniques for a levee system. The result confirmed the rotational failure and translational failure mechanisms for the London Ave. Canal levee and 17^th St. Canal levee, respectively. In addition, it found that the floodwalls with fresh waterstop in their joints perform better than those with old/weathered waterstop by decreasing pore water pressure build-up in the levee. Structural caps placed on the top of the joints between I-walls could also prevent local failure by spreading the load to surrounding walls. At the same time, the self-sealing bentonite-sand mixture installed along the riverside of floodwalls could mitigate the failure of floodwalls by blocking the infiltration of seepage water into the gap formed between levee soils and floodwalls.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
• /
• v.18 no.3
• /
• pp.600-608
• /
• 2017

The presence of piping in a levee body allows water seepage to occur by producing a large cavity or water tunnel within it, ultimately resulting in the failure of the river levee and differential settlement. In order to properly cope with river levee failure due to piping and establish a proper remediation method for this problem, it is necessary to analyze the failure mechanism of the river levee due to piping. Therefore, this study analyzed the shape and mechanism of river levee failure due to piping through small-scale and large-scale models and evaluated the seepage pressure distribution characteristics in the hydraulic well, which has been suggested as a remediation method for piping. According to the results of this study, as the safety factor for the piping in the river levee decreased, the river levee failure shape was more clearly shown through the small-scale model test. In the large-scale model test, the type of local damage to the levee due to the piping was identified and the evaluation showed that the hydraulic well had the largest effect on the inhibition of piping below the center of the well. A follow-up study is needed to confirm the reliability of the results. However, it is thought that this study can be utilized as the baseline data for research into the piping-induced river levee failure mechanism and for the preparation of a remediation method.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
• /
• 2010.09a
• /
• pp.144-169
• /
• 2010

In 2002, property loss caused by failure or leakage of existing river levee structures was about 1.8 trillion in Korean Won, and furthermore in which damages of river structures are getting more severe due to characteristics of extremely extraordinary rain such as torrential rain in the locality or guerrilla heavy rain. In this regards, this paper collects and analyzes those damage records and costs for repair by statistic method, and moreover categorizes the causes of failure, erosion and overtopping of levee structures in large and small scale rivers threatened frequently by typhoon and heavy rainfall. It is believed that the results from the analyses can be used as a basic source in developing criteria of standards for design, construction, maintenance and inspection(or diagnosis) of hydraulic structures such as levee and drain conduit.

• Ecology and Resilient Infrastructure
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.120-127
• /
• 2019

Medium-scale levee experiments were performed to monitor the infiltration and failure of levee body by applying fiber optic temperature sensing. In this study, bio-polymer soil was spread in the levee slope to increase the strength and intensity. Therefore, the infiltration and failure by overflows were produced in a different way compared to general soil type of levees. This was also observed in the experiment data for temperature changes monitored by fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing system. Through the analysis of temperature changes at specific location by time, the location and initiation time for physical changes and infiltration in levee body could be identified based on temperature variation. In this experiment, the time of rapid changes in temperature was ahead in the inland slope rather than the forceland slope. It was corresponding to the levee failure sequence of first inland slope failure and then the forceland slope failure.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.38 no.11
• /
• pp.19-30
• /
• 2022

Developing a fragility curve for the levee requires calculating the probability of failure according to the water level for each failure mode. Since probabilistic analysis requires iterative analysis to account for variability in geotechnical parameters, the fragility curve development inevitably requires many iterative calculations. Therefore, approximate probabilistic analysis techniques are usually applied to reduce the amount of calculation in developing the levee fragility curve. However, their accuracy has not been determined clearly. This study calculated the failure probability of slope and piping failure mode for an actual levee through probabilistic methods, such as FOSM, PEM, and MCS. Then, the fragility curve of the levee according to the water level was developed. The results of the approximate methods: FOSM and PEM, were compared with those of MCS to evaluate the applicability to the fragility curve for slope and piping failure mode.

• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
• /
• v.12 no.4
• /
• pp.1-17
• /
• 2009

In recent years, most of flood damage is associated with the levee failure. The objective of this study is to predict flow depths, flood area, flooding time and flood damage through flood inundation analysis considering the overflow of levee and the characteristics of levee failure. The hydrological parameters were extracted from GIS data such as DEM, land cover and soil map to estimate levee failure discharge. In addition, the characteristics of flood wave propagation could be accurately predicted as flood inundation analysis was accomplished considering the affection of structure within protected lowland and hourly prediction of flooded areas and estimation of flood strength will be utilized as basic data for the flood defence and establishment of measure to reduce flood damage.

• Journal of Wetlands Research
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.45-57
• /
• 2016

Levee safety is being evaluated using one of the several failure causes including overtopping, infiltration and erosion or 1D hydraulic analysis considering physical characteristics of levee in practical engineering works. However, mentioned evaluation methods are not able to consider various failure causes of levee at the same time and to get reliable results where requires the accurate topographic information. This study proposed the flood hazard index which is able to consider several hazard factors involving overtopping, infiltration and erosion risk simultaneously. The index was generated from results of 2D hydraulic analysis reflecting accurate topographic information. The study areas are the confluences of the Nakdong River and two streams(Gamcheon and Hoecheon). Levee safety was evaluated using results based on 2D hydraulic analysis considering riverbed changes of before and after dredging work in the study area. This study will contribute to estimate the reliable safety evaluation of levee where may have hazards during extreme flood events.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.34 no.2
• /
• pp.141-154
• /
• 2001

An experimental study was performed to investigate the effects of levee crest width and the slope steepness on levee break due to overtopping flow. The phenomenon of bank failure can be described in 4 stages. In this study, the magnitudes of breach width, breach depth peak discharge, and scouring shape at the break site were measured, and the result shows that peak discharge will be reduced and breach duration extended by widening the crown width and lessening the levee slope steepness. The breach width was narrower and the breach depth deeper, as the levee crest width become wider or the slope steeper. And, the bed scour depth was deeper and steeper, as the levee crest crest width become narrower or the slope milder.