Reliability of Flood Defences
This research investigates the residual strength of dykes; that is, the ability of a dyke to withstand flooding following an initial (local) slope instability. This is achieved through application of the random material point method (RMPM) for modelling the initiation and progressive evolution of slope instabilities. The approach accounts for large deformations and spatial variability of soil properties within soil layers, as well as the propagation of uncertainty from the soil property level to the structure response level through a reliability-based framework. An important aspect of the research is the methodology to detect the evolving domain boundary and apply external loading.
