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Multiscale modeling of backward erosion piping in flood protection system infrastructure
Author(s) -
Fascetti Alessandro,
Oskay Caglar
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
computer‐aided civil and infrastructure engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.773
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1467-8667
pISSN - 1093-9687
DOI - 10.1111/mice.12489
Subject(s) - piping , scale (ratio) , flood myth , erosion , computer science , process (computing) , pier , civil engineering , geology , engineering , mechanical engineering , cartography , geography , paleontology , archaeology , operating system
This article presents a novel multiscale modeling approach to simulate the evolution of the backward erosion piping (BEP) process in flood protection systems (FPSs). A multiphase description of the BEP phenomenon is proposed for the numerical solution at the local scale and validated by means of full‐scale experimental results available in the literature. Results of the local scale simulations are used as the training set for a multilayer machine learning (ML) model to bridge the information between the local and system scales. Accuracy of the trained ML algorithms is demonstrated by comparing results obtained from detailed physics‐based numerical models. The novelty of the proposed methodology lies in its capability of real‐time predictions of the overall response at the system scale. A case study is presented where a portion of the Nashville Metro Levee System is analyzed over the span of a year, to assess the likelihood of BEP in the infrastructure. The capability of the model to accept water height data obtained from field measurements is exploited in the numerical simulations.