Engineering Commons^™

Reliability-Based Underseepage Analysis In Levees Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Lourdes Polanco

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A new method for assessing the potential for unsatisfactory levee performance due to underseepage is presented. Specifically, the method assesses the potential for the initiation of piping (the internal backward erosion of the foundation or embankment caused by seepage). Current assessment methods consist of deterministic seepage analyses and simplified reliability methods. Deterministic methods produce either a maximum hydraulic exit gradient or a Factor of Safety against piping but they do not account for high levels of uncertainty in soil properties and subsurface geometry that are inherent to many levee analyses. The most common simplified reliability approaches that are currently being …