LARGE-SCALE OPEN-CHANNEL EXPERIMENTS ON THE COLLAPSE OF ABUTMENT BACKFILL OWING TO FLOODS AND PROPOSED COUNTERMEASURE

Abstract

 In Japan, great damage to abutment backfills caused by large-scale floods occurs every year. It is necessary to examine the fundamental collapse mechanism on as close to full scale as possible, in order to achieve a sufficient effect of the similarity laws in geotechnical engineering, river engineering, and bridge engineering. In this study, geotechnical evaluations were carried out, such as observation of pore water pressure behavior in an embankment, settlement of an embankment crest, and applicability of a reinforced soil wall as a countermeasure construction, under conditions affected by flowing water. The results show that the collapse behavior of an embankment surface differs depending on the soil properties of the embankment material. The erosion of the river bed progressed even in the footing lower surface of the abutment foundation and in the upstream side of the abutment, where the flow velocity was locally large and changes in the flow direction were confirmed. In addition, when a gabion-reinforced earth wall with water permeability was used for the wall surface construction as a countermeasure, washout of the embankment in the abutment to the extent that a pavement surface above would collapse did not occur, thereby confirming the gabion’s usefulness as a countermeasure.