Suffusion susceptibility investigation by energy-based method and statistical analysis

Abstract

Internal erosion is one of the main causes of instabilities within hydraulic earth structures. Four internal erosion processes can be distinguished, and this study deals with the process of suffusion, which corresponds to the coupled processes of detachment–transport–filtration of the soil’s fine fraction between the coarse fraction. Because of the great length of earth structures and the heterogeneities of soils, it is very difficult to characterize the suffusion susceptibility of the different soils. Nevertheless, a statistical analysis can be performed to optimize the experimental campaign. By using a dedicated erodimeter, an experimental program was set up to study suffusion susceptibility of 31 specimens of nonplastic and low-plasticity soils. The suffusion susceptibility is determined by the erosion resistance index, which relates the total loss of mass with the total energy expended by the seepage flow. Fourteen physical parameters are selected, and a multi-variate statistical analysis leads to a correlation between the erosion resistance index and all these parameters. A statistical analysis is performed to identify the main parameters and to focus on those that can easily be measured on existing structures. By distinguishing gap-graded and widely graded soils, two correlations are proposed to estimate the erosion resistance index.