Étude expérimentale de l'écoulement sur une digue et de l'érosion progressive de celle-ci

Details

Supervisors

Soares Frazao, Sandra ; Bousmar, Didier

Faculty

Ecole polytechnique de Louvain

Degree label

Master [120] : ingénieur civil des constructions, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

enAt a time when natural disasters of all kinds are occurring with increasing regularity, flooding in particular is a growing threat to the population. Even our own country, which until now had been spared, has recently suffered the terrible consequences of river flooding. There is therefore an urgent need to learn more about the failure of retaining infrastructures such as dykes, which is still poorly documented. For this reason, this thesis focuses on the experimental study of dyke failure by overtopping, the phenomenon that accounts for the majority of failures. Medium-scale experiments have been carried out, attempting to characterize the temporal evolution of breaches by reproducing it under real conditions. Building on previous small-scale experiments, the research aims to establish correlations and fill gaps due to the lack of data relating to this intermediate scale. An experimental set-up has been developed, together with measurement devices for collecting data. These were used to study the phenomenon using longitudinal, transverse and planar views of the dike, and to verify the reproducibility of the tests carried out. The results obtained corroborate those of the scientific literature dedicated to small and medium scale. Despite certain limitations of similarity, the study enriches the understanding of dike failure mechanisms at different scales, offering useful information for future research and practical applications.