Simulation of pipe progression in a levee foundation with coupled seepage and pipe flow domains

Abstract A very large percentage of piping cases have been brought about by internal erosion, which is the primary cause of dam failures. This study developed a numerical model to simulate the pipe progression in a levee foundation by analyzing the inception and transportation of erodible particles from the soil fabric. An approach that considers the turbulent flow in an erodible pipe and the seepage flow in the remaining area of a levee foundation is employed to capture the main hydraulic characteristics of piping. The mechanical analysis of individual erodible particles is considered to quantify the critical condition for particle inception in an erodible pipe. In addition, physical piping model tests are numerically simulated to examine the proposed approach. The simulation demonstrates that the flow in a pipe can progress backward from downstream to upstream when the upstream water head reaches a critical value. Furthermore, the function mechanism of a cut-off wall can be explained by this model. The results have revealed that this model can reproduce the experimental data, such as the critical water head and the progression time, which are obtained from the physical model. The relationship between the depth of a suspended cut-off wall and the critical water head is obtained; this relationship facilitates the practical design of the critical depth of a cut-off wall for a given water head.