A finite element modeling of the impact of internal erosion on the stability of a dike

Abstract : This paper presents a numerical model of internal erosion based on the approach of continuous porous media. The soil skeleton saturated by a pore fluid is treated as the superposition of four constituents in interaction: solid skeleton, erodible fines, fluidized particles, and fluid. The detachment and transport of fine particles are modeled by the mass exchange between solid and fluid phases. In order to take into account the influence of the change of void ratio induced by internal erosion on the soil skeleton, a critical state based constitutive model is used to calculate the effective stress-strain response of the soil skeleton. This coupled hydro-mechanical analysis is applied to study the impact of erosion on a dike. The numerical simulations show the progressive development of internal erosion within the foundation of the dyke. The effect of the mechanical degradation due to internal erosion is demonstrated by evaluating the factor of safety of the dyke slope by means of the shear strength reduction method.