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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Case Study: Unsaturated Embankment Failure On Soft Soils, Ghada Ellithy, Timothy D. Stark Oct 2020

Case Study: Unsaturated Embankment Failure On Soft Soils, Ghada Ellithy, Timothy D. Stark

Publications

This paper describes the application of unsaturated soil mechanics to an interstate connecting-ramp embankment that failed during construction. Specifically, matric suction is incorporated into the calculation of the tension crack (TC) depth induced by desiccation and strain incompatibility and the contribution of matric suction to embankment shear strength. The results are compared with field observations to assess the viability of unsaturated soil mechanics in modeling compacted embankments in stability analyses. Results from this study suggest that using unsaturated shear strength parameters while introducing a TC in the compacted fill yields a reasonable inverse analysis of this interstate embankment. This may …


Monte Carlo Simulations Of Coupled Transient Seepage Flow And Compressive Stress In Levees, Fred Thomas Tracy, Ghada Ellithy, Jodi L. Ryder, Martin T. Schultz, Benjamin R. Breland, T. Chris Massey, Maureen K. Corcoran Jan 2020

Monte Carlo Simulations Of Coupled Transient Seepage Flow And Compressive Stress In Levees, Fred Thomas Tracy, Ghada Ellithy, Jodi L. Ryder, Martin T. Schultz, Benjamin R. Breland, T. Chris Massey, Maureen K. Corcoran

Publications

The purpose of this research is to compare the results from two different computer programs of flow analyses of two levees at Port Arthur, Texas where rising water of a flood from Hurricane Ike occurred on the levees. The first program (Program 1) is a two-dimensional (2-D) transient finite element program that couples the conservation of mass flow equation with accompanying hydraulic boundary conditions with the conservation of force equations with accompanying x and y displacement and force boundary conditions, thus yielding total head, x displacement, and y displacement as unknowns at each finite element node. The second program (Program …