Seismic Performance and Deformation of Levees: Four Case Studies

During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the Pajaro River levees near Watsonville, Calif., spread laterally at multiple locations. Four of these locations are discussed in this paper. At one location, an industrial facility was also damaged and a dispute arose as to whether lateral spreading of the adjacent levee was the cause. Stability analyses were made of the industrial site for conditions before, during, and after the earthquake. To confirm the findings, analyses were also made of three other nearby locations where the actual deformation was documented and the subsurface conditions are well defined. The calculated levee deformations at the four locations are quite consistent with the observed movements (up to 60 cm). This experience provides increased confidence in the methods of analysis described, for the characterized subsurface conditions, and the range of ground motions experienced. Additional analyses made using the more recently developed multilinear regression lateral-spreading model (e.g., Youd et al. in 1999) yielded inconsistent results.     

New Orleans Levee System Performance during Hurricane Katrina: 17th Street Canal and Orleans Canal North

Centrifuge modeling of the 17th Street Canal and Orleans Canal North levees was performed in this study. During hurricane Katrina the levees on the 17th Street Canal failed, leading to breaches in the outfall canal in the city. Two mechanisms were observed in the centrifuge modeling that could cause a breach. First, a water-filled crack formed in front of the floodwall as the water in the canal rose above the top of the levee. The levees on the 17th Street Canal, which were supported on clay foundations, failed when this cracking led to a translational (sliding) failure in the clay layer commencing at the toe of the floodwall. The levees at Orleans Canal North, where failure did not occur, were also modeled to demonstrate that the model tests could successfully simulate failure and nonfailure conditions. The centrifuge model tests identified the importance of the crack formation in relation to the stability of the floodwall. These tests also confirmed that levee geometry, floodwall depth of penetration, and the underlying soil profile were all critical to the performance of the system under flood loading.     

Analysis of the Stability of I-Walls with Gaps between the I-Wall and the Levee Fill

Following Hurricane Katrina an extensive investigation of the performance of floodwalls in the New Orleans area was undertaken by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and others. This investigation included detailed study of failures of cantilevered sheet pile “I-walls” during the hurricane. An important lesson from this investigation was that gaps can form on the canal side of I-walls as the water rises in the canal and causes the I-wall to deflect. Once formed, these gaps filled with water, resulting in significantly higher loads on the walls. Gap formation was a key factor in several I-wall failures, and modeling such gaps correctly is clearly an important aspect of analyzing I-wall stability. This paper describes simple procedures for estimating the depths of gaps behind I-walls, for calculating the loads to which they are subjected, and for including them in stability analyses. The effects of gaps on the stability of the 17th Canal and the London Avenue Canal I-walls are discussed.     

New Orleans Levee System Performance during Hurricane Katrina: London Avenue and Orleans Canal South

Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history. The effects of the hurricane were particularly devastating in the city of New Orleans. Most of the damage was due to the failure of the levee system that surrounds the city to protect it from flooding. This paper presents the results of centrifuge models conducted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers simulating the behavior of the levees at London Avenue North and South that failed during Hurricane Katrina. Those levees failed without being overtopped by the storm surge. Also included are the results of a centrifuge model of one levee section at Orleans Canal South, which did not fail during the hurricane. The key factor of the failure mechanism of the London Avenue levees was the formation of a gap between the flooded side of the levee and the sheetpile. This gap triggered a reduction of the strength at the foundation of the protected side of the levee. The results are fully consistent with field observations.     

Efficient Implicit Finite-Element Hydrodynamic Model for Dam and Levee Breach

This technical paper presents the development and application of a pseudo-transient continuation (PTC)– inspired flow model for the simulation of dam and levee failure. The unstructured, implicit, Petrov-Galerkin finite-element model relies on computed residuals to automatically adjust the time-step size. The implicit time integration, together with the automatic time-step size selection through PTC, makes the model computationally efficient. The model is verified and applied to several analytic and real-world test cases that exercise model behavior and accuracy for several critical, transcritical, and subcritical flows. The result is an efficient and accurate prediction of both the speed and depth of shock waves as the dam-break flow passes over initially dry and wet land.     

Influence of Boundary Conditions in a Finite-Element Analysis of River Levees

The effects of boundary conditions on the stability of a river levee built on a low-permeability soil layer overlying a coarse-grained deposit were studied by using the finite-element method (FEM). The FEM analyses could predict stable or unstable levee conditions depending on the assumed distance between the levee and the external boundary of the mesh where the water table was assumed undisturbed. Possible causes of this notable drawback are discussed. The calibration of the numerical seepage model, through a back analysis of piezometer measurements, that could limit the observed boundary effects is suggested.     

Transient Head Development due to Flood Induced Seepage under Levees

The purpose of this study was to predict the uplift force during floods on confining layers that overlay extensive horizontal confined aquifers that intersect a large river in response to the water level changes that occur with time in a flooding river. Transient flow of water through the confined aquifer was described by a diffusion type of equation with a boundary condition at the river in which the river head varied with time. The transient head distribution developed from the unsteady flow model applied to the aquifer was compared with the hydraulic head distributions obtained from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers steady-state flow model and a finite-element seepage model. This study concluded that the transient flow model has the potential to analyze time lag in head development, and to predict the seepage condition and heaving potential at various times and distances landside of a levee during a flood cycle, but additional case histories are needed to justify widespread use of the model.     

Levee Erosion by Overtopping in New Orleans during the Katrina Hurricane

Erodibility of a soil is defined here as the relationship between the erosion rate of a soil dz/dt and the velocity v of the water flowing over it, or the relationship between the erosion rate of a soil dz/dt and the shear stress developed by the water at the water-soil interface. This is called the erosion function. The test used to measure the erosion function of the levee soils is the erosion function apparatus test. The test consists of eroding a soil sample by pushing it out of a thin wall steel tube and recording the erosion rate for a given velocity of the water flowing over it. Several velocities are used and the erosion function is defined. A new erosion category chart is proposed to reduce the erodibility of a soil or rock to a single category number. Twenty three samples were retrieved from 11 locations at the surface of the levees around New Orleans. Thirteen were samples from Shelby tubes while ten were bag samples. The results obtained show a large variation of erosion resistance among the soils tested. Some of the levees associated with the location of the samples resisted the overtopping erosion very well; others eroded completely. On the basis of the erosion test results and of the observed behavior of the levees during the hurricane, a chart is presented which can be used to select soils for overtopping resistance. Numerical simulations were performed using the program CHEN 3D to obtain the distribution of velocity vectors in the overtopping flow and of shear stresses at the interface between the water and the levee surface. The comparison of the numerical simulation results and of the erosion function gives added credibility to the proposed levee overtopping erosion chart.     

Nonlinear Dynamic Properties of a Fibrous Organic Soil

The nonlinear dynamic properties of a fibrous peaty organic soil beneath a levee in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta in California are described herein. Thin-walled tube samples were obtained from four locations between the levee crest and the free field such that the in situ vertical effective stresses (σvo′) ranged from about 12 kPa in the free field to about 135 kPa beneath the levee crest. The peaty organic soil was very soft and highly compressible in the free field with initial water contents (wo) of 236–588% and shear wave velocities (Vs) of typically 22–27 m/s, and moderately firm beneath the levee crest with wo of 152–240% and Vs of typically 88–129 m/s. Stress–strain measurements in a cyclic triaxial device showed that the normalized secant shear modulus (G/Gmax) and equivalent damping ratio (ξ) versus cyclic shear strain amplitude (γc) relations were dependent on the consolidation stress (σvc′). Tests involving prior overstraining followed by reconsolidation showed that the effects of sample disturbance were likely small. Stress history, creep, and loading frequency effects were also examined. Tests on reconstituted specimens provided supplementary data on the functional relation between maximum shear modulus (Gmax) and consolidation stress conditions. Summary relations are provided for G/Gmax and ξ versus γc and for Gmax versus σvc′.     

Case Histories in Soil and Rock Erosion: Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Brazos River Meander, Normandy Cliffs, and New Orleans Levees

This lecture presents four case history examples of erosion processes. Because the topic of soil and rock erosion is relatively underdeveloped in geotechnical engineering, an introduction precedes the case histories to describe some fundamental aspects of erosion. Erosion involves the soil or rock through its erodibility, the water through its velocity, and the geometry of the obstacle through its size and shape. Knowledge of these three components is needed for any erosion problem to be studied and solved. A set of fundamental issues are addressed in the first part including an erodibility classification for soils and rocks, an explanation of the stresses imposed by the water on the soil-water or rock-water interface, and an explanation of how the geometry impacts the problem. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge case history outlines a new and less conservative method to compute the scour depth and gives examples of bridge scour calculations. The Brazos River meander case history outlines a new method to predict meander migration and gives an example of migration calculations. The Pointe du Hoc case history gives an explanation of a process of rock cliff erosion. The New Orleans levees case history gives an example of erosion of levees by overtopping and proposes an erosion design chart for levee overtopping. Whenever possible the results are presented in a probabilistic fashion. All case histories make use of the erosion function apparatus, an apparatus developed to quantify the erodibility of a soil or rock and to give the constitutive law for erosion problems: the erosion function. The power point slides for the lecture including many photos of the case histories are available at ?http://ceprofs.tamu.edu/briaud/? under “Lectures” and the video (DVD) of the lecture is available from the author, free of charge.