Location
Arlington, Virginia
Date
14 Aug 2008, 4:30pm - 6:00pm
Abstract
A peat levee at Wilnis in The Netherlands suddenly failed at the end of the relatively dry summer of 2003. On Monday, 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. gulf coast and breached, among other failures, the 17th Street Canal. These failures triggered large research programs. In the Wilnis case, it was eventually deduced that the 5-m horizontal translation of the levee was triggered by a combination of reduced weight by evaporation, shrinkage and cracking of the peat material, and an increased head in the sand layer under the dike. A key factor in the 17th Street Canal failure was the formation of a gap between the wall and the levee fill on the canal side of the fill. Due to climate change, more extreme dry and wet periods, land subsidence, and increasing sea and river levels, the horizontal shifting due to cracking is becoming more significant in the safety assessments of levees. In this paper, aspects of horizontal failures during extreme dry or wet periods are elaborated. First, a geo-hydrologic design procedure to assess the consequences of droughts for cracked peat levees is presented. The design procedure is then validated with measurements of a peat levee, the Middelburgsekade, and extreme water table positions that are likely to occur once in a period of 400 years that have been predicted for this levee. Furthermore, the most dangerous cracks for the Wilnis case are indicated. Next, the performance of levees and floodwalls during Hurricane Katrina are presented. Finally, the failure of the 17th Street Canal breach in New Orleans is described in detail. Conclusions are drawn related to horizontal failures and location of cracks during extreme weather conditions
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
6th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2008 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
Van, Meindert A.; Zwanenburg, Cor; van Esch, John M.; Sharp, Michael K.; and Mosher, Reed L., "Horizontal Translational Failures of Levees Due to Water Filled Gaps" (2008). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 25.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/6icchge/session02/25
Horizontal Translational Failures of Levees Due to Water Filled Gaps
Arlington, Virginia
A peat levee at Wilnis in The Netherlands suddenly failed at the end of the relatively dry summer of 2003. On Monday, 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the U.S. gulf coast and breached, among other failures, the 17th Street Canal. These failures triggered large research programs. In the Wilnis case, it was eventually deduced that the 5-m horizontal translation of the levee was triggered by a combination of reduced weight by evaporation, shrinkage and cracking of the peat material, and an increased head in the sand layer under the dike. A key factor in the 17th Street Canal failure was the formation of a gap between the wall and the levee fill on the canal side of the fill. Due to climate change, more extreme dry and wet periods, land subsidence, and increasing sea and river levels, the horizontal shifting due to cracking is becoming more significant in the safety assessments of levees. In this paper, aspects of horizontal failures during extreme dry or wet periods are elaborated. First, a geo-hydrologic design procedure to assess the consequences of droughts for cracked peat levees is presented. The design procedure is then validated with measurements of a peat levee, the Middelburgsekade, and extreme water table positions that are likely to occur once in a period of 400 years that have been predicted for this levee. Furthermore, the most dangerous cracks for the Wilnis case are indicated. Next, the performance of levees and floodwalls during Hurricane Katrina are presented. Finally, the failure of the 17th Street Canal breach in New Orleans is described in detail. Conclusions are drawn related to horizontal failures and location of cracks during extreme weather conditions
