Experimental investigation of sediment movement as a result of homogeneous earth-fill dam overtopping break over a simplified urban area

When an earth-fill dam breaks, dam body sediment and water flow simultaneously move to downstream area causing devastation. Dam break studies in the literature have concentrated mostly on the water flow part while ignoring the sediment movement by designing the dam body as a movable metal gate. This study, however, is the first one experimentally investigating flow and sediment transport due to an earth-fill dam break by constructing the dam body from sediment. Sediment propagation as a result of homogenous earth-fill dam overtopping break was experimentally studied in a laboratory flume of 18.4 m long and 2.0 m wide, and 0.88 m in height in the Hydraulics Laboratory of Izmir Katip Celebi University, Izmir, Turkey. Downstream section right after the dam body was designed as a smooth bed and rough bed. The rough bed, resembling a simplified urban area, was created by using thirteen 10 × 10 × 10 cm sized concrete blocks. The dam body was constructed as homogenous with uniform material having D50 = 0.441 mm. The earth-fill dam body was built using the standard compression methods; each layer of sediment with a thickness of 10 cm was laid in layers, and the body was prepared with a crest width of 10 cm, a transverse base width of 200 cm, a longitudinal base width of 202 cm and height of 60 cm with upstream and downstream slopes of 1:1.6. The water level behind the dam was gradually raised until it overtopped the crest level. A pre-breach was formed at the top of the dam to trigger the break. During each dam break event, water depths were measured by three ULS-40D level meter sensors at different locations, and the final sediment bathymetry map was generated using the ULS-40D Probes at 10 × 10 cm grids. The results showed that, in both smooth and rough downstream bed cases, the dam body eventually collapsed while a great portion of it was carried away by the flood flow. The sediment spreading occurred all over the downstream area, showing significant non-uniform variation in thickness both longitudinally and transversely, especially in the simulated urban area. All the residential areas, while breaking in motion, were submerged under the muddy flow. Some blocks were almost submerged while sediment heights reached half level of some blocks at the end of the experiment. Sediment heights were higher in the urban area.