Location
Chicago, Illinois
Date
02 May 2013, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Abstract
Hurricane Katrina was responsible for hundreds of deaths, billions of dollars of damage, and left the levee system in New Orleans in a state of disrepair. Many levees that make up the Flood Protection system for New Orleans were overtopped and sustained considerable damage. This case history will look at one section of levee in New Orleans East designated LPV (Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity) -111 that is 5.3 miles in length. LPV-111 was overtopped and breeches occurred adjacent to structures. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was tasked to not only repair the levee, but also to raise the effective height to provide the One Hundred Year level of protection by increasing the levee crown from Elevation 17’ to Elevation 28’. A conventional levee with stability berms was quickly ruled out due to the limited right-of-way that existed due to the close proximity of the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge. In order to stabilize the weak soils underlying the existing levee, the USACE decided to improve the characteristics of the soils by utilizing the Deep Mixing Method (DMM). The DMM would create a stable foundation on which the height of the levee could be increased while also controlling overall settlement and provide lateral stability to resist future storm surges. The project consisted of stabilizing more than 1.6 million cubic yards of soil to depths up to approximately 70’ while using over 460,000 tons of binder consisting of both Ordinary Portland Cement and Blast Furnace Slag. Eight deep mixing rigs were used to successfully complete the project while working around the clock for a total of 14 months. The project was an outstanding technical success and is the largest deep mixing project in the world, outside of Japan.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
7th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2013 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Schmutzler, Wesley; Leoni, Filippo Maria; and Sansing, Kyle, "Levee Foundation Remediation Using the Deep Mix Method" (2013). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 28.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/7icchge/session03/28
Levee Foundation Remediation Using the Deep Mix Method
Chicago, Illinois
Hurricane Katrina was responsible for hundreds of deaths, billions of dollars of damage, and left the levee system in New Orleans in a state of disrepair. Many levees that make up the Flood Protection system for New Orleans were overtopped and sustained considerable damage. This case history will look at one section of levee in New Orleans East designated LPV (Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity) -111 that is 5.3 miles in length. LPV-111 was overtopped and breeches occurred adjacent to structures. The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was tasked to not only repair the levee, but also to raise the effective height to provide the One Hundred Year level of protection by increasing the levee crown from Elevation 17’ to Elevation 28’. A conventional levee with stability berms was quickly ruled out due to the limited right-of-way that existed due to the close proximity of the Bayou Sauvage Wildlife Refuge. In order to stabilize the weak soils underlying the existing levee, the USACE decided to improve the characteristics of the soils by utilizing the Deep Mixing Method (DMM). The DMM would create a stable foundation on which the height of the levee could be increased while also controlling overall settlement and provide lateral stability to resist future storm surges. The project consisted of stabilizing more than 1.6 million cubic yards of soil to depths up to approximately 70’ while using over 460,000 tons of binder consisting of both Ordinary Portland Cement and Blast Furnace Slag. Eight deep mixing rigs were used to successfully complete the project while working around the clock for a total of 14 months. The project was an outstanding technical success and is the largest deep mixing project in the world, outside of Japan.
