TY - GEN
T1 - Geo-Hydro Forensic Investigation of an Earthen Dam Failure
AU - Brown, Christopher J.
AU - Crowley, Raphael
AU - Hudyma, Nick
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Hampton Lake, a recreational reservoir located in northern Nassau County, Florida, USA, was heavily impacted by the effects of Hurricane Irma. A combination of heavy precipitation and hurricane-induced high water stages in the St. Mary's River caused catastrophic failure of the earthen dam containing the reservoir and complete loss of the stored water. The failure was initially documented by a NSF supported Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance (GEER) reconnaissance site visit. After this initial effort, the investigation was expanded to evaluate the cause of the dam failure. During the storm event, the spillway was overtopped leading to toe erosion. Based on the analyses conducted to date, the most likely cause of the dam failure was erosion of the downstream embankment areas which were not adequately protected by riprap. Failure case studies are useful to design engineers around the world by providing "lessons learned" to improve future design efforts for similar projects.
AB - Hampton Lake, a recreational reservoir located in northern Nassau County, Florida, USA, was heavily impacted by the effects of Hurricane Irma. A combination of heavy precipitation and hurricane-induced high water stages in the St. Mary's River caused catastrophic failure of the earthen dam containing the reservoir and complete loss of the stored water. The failure was initially documented by a NSF supported Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance (GEER) reconnaissance site visit. After this initial effort, the investigation was expanded to evaluate the cause of the dam failure. During the storm event, the spillway was overtopped leading to toe erosion. Based on the analyses conducted to date, the most likely cause of the dam failure was erosion of the downstream embankment areas which were not adequately protected by riprap. Failure case studies are useful to design engineers around the world by providing "lessons learned" to improve future design efforts for similar projects.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063550880&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1061/9780784482155.012
DO - 10.1061/9780784482155.012
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85063550880
SN - 9780784482155
T3 - Geotechnical Special Publication
SP - 114
EP - 126
BT - Geotechnical Special Publication
A2 - Meehan, Christopher L.
A2 - Kumar, Sanjeev
A2 - Pando, Miguel A.
A2 - Coe, Joseph T.
T2 - 8th International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering: Soil Erosion, Underground Engineering, and Risk Assessment, Geo-Congress 2019
Y2 - 24 March 2019 through 27 March 2019
ER -