Transparent Soils for Studying Internal Erosion – Presentation of Licentiate thesis

Embankment dams constitute most of Sweden’s dam infrastructure, serving hydropower production and tailings storage. Most of these structures were built more than 50 years ago, with a central core consisting of glacial tills, which is a natural material widespread availability and low hydraulic conductivity. Today, several dams have experienced problems related to internal erosion such as sinkholes or leakage, making internal erosion an essential safety issue.

The scope of this work comprises (i) a synthesis of current knowledge on internal erosion and transparent soil technologies, (ii) the development and characterization of transparent soil mixtures with consolidation and hydraulic conductivity properties similar to various glacial till gradations, and (iii) the design of a laboratory setup for suffusion testing using these materials. The scope is limited to validating transparent soils as surrogates for glacial tills. Suffusion tests on transparent soils will be conducted in future work to fulfill the aim of this project to study the initiation of suffusion on glacial till.

Shane Aulestia Viscara will present his thesis and you are accordingly invited. The seminar will be possible to join through teams.

The thesis can be downloaded