Bureau of Reclamation Erosion Testing for Evaluation of Piping and Internal Erosion of Dams: Fid-Bau Portal

Bureau of Reclamation Erosion Testing for Evaluation of Piping and Internal Erosion of Dams

Farrar, Jeffrey A. / Torres, Roger L. / Erdogan, Zeynep

The US Bureau of Reclamation is responsible for the safe performance of many dams West of the Mississippi. Embankment dams are susceptible to uncontrolled seepage and possible failure by piping and internal erosion. Engineers need tests that will assist in evaluating risk of piping, and in the mid 1990's there was no commonly accepted test for evaluating piping and internal erosion potential. Recently, Reclamation's Dam Safety Office has funded several research programs to improve their ability to perform safety risk analysis. Reclamation along other agencies, funded research at the University of New South Wales (USNW), by Professor Robin Fell on piping and internal erosion. This comprehensive research was focused on determining all variables involved with piping and internal erosion. Part of the UNSW research involved slot and hole erosion tests. UNSW developed soil erosion indexes through extensive testing and factored those indices into overall risk evaluations. The Hole Erosion Test (HET) is a simple, low cost test but, it has difficulty because there are non-uniform flow conditions in the test. This paper presents a review of past Reclamation research on erosion, examination of other erosion tests currently available, which could be used for piping, a summary of UNSW research, and a summary of current Reclamation research on the HET. Reclamation's goal is to quantify the HET for standardization so engineers now will have a readily available test for piping and internal erosion for risk analysis.