Segmented Height Field and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics in Erosion Simulation

1 Motivation The New Orleans area levee failures during Hurricane Katrina drew media attention to an important problem in Civil Engineering. The emphasis of our work is on earthen levees, dams, and embankments. A major cause of failures of such structures is overtopping, which causes erosion to the point of breaching the crest. Our research focuses on simulating the initial small-scale features of erosion – the formation of rills and gullies on the embankment. We wish to study and eventually be able to simulate the way earthen embankments erode, with respect to the formation of these rills and gullies. Validation of computer simulations is the primary focus of our research. We will utilize RPI’s geotechnical centrifuge to perform highg erosion experiments on small-scale models to predict and validate the model for full scale simulations.