Centrifugal Modelling of Soil Structures. Part III. The Stability of River Banks and Flood Embankments

摘要

This dissertation concerns two real problems of instability on the banks of major rivers. The two rivers, the Thames and the Mississippi, are both extensively canalised. Instabilities may develop in the river banks at times of flood and threaten to re-establish the natural regime of the rivers with a concomitant risk to life and installations behind the flood defences. The two problems of instability were selected for this study both for their practical importance, and for their illustration of a theme: the interaction of two layers of soil. In each case the river bank instability may take alternative forms depending on the relative geometry of the soil layers involved. The objectives of the investigation was to show that the modes of failure which are observed in the field may be understood in terms of the mechanisms by which the two layers interact with one another during failure.