The Piping Failure Mechanism of a Loess Dam: The 2021 Dam Break of the Yang Village Reservoir in China

The construction of a reservoir on large-thickness collapsible loess cover will significantly increase the occurrence dam break disasters. main reason may be that although gradation particle is not uniform. clay content less than 10%. Piping channels easily form under action force and collapsibility. Near-static liquefaction in body saturated condition lead to piping or loss soil strength. Therefore, it great significance study mechanical characteristics state for preventing break. investigated 2021 failure Yang village Ningxia, China, which resulted millions dollars property damage but no casualties. gradual development from complete This tries find out real physical properties foundation dam. We mainly carried research through following three aspects: First, structure was identified by using seismograph, compactness determined according wave velocity layer, quality comprehensively evaluated. Second, size distribution confirmed mechanism uneven loss. Finally, undrained are tested, essentially explained. results show this fill directly has very high probability piping-type failure. gives some design suggestions building, example, filter layer difficulty occurrence.