BRIDGE ON THE RIVER HALDI - FAILURES OF APPROACH EMBANKMENT AND TWO WELLS.

The reason for a fifteen year delay in building a bridge was due to three failures of the northern approach embankment and enormous tilt of the first two wells on that side. The Committee analyzed the site conditions and circumstances that led to the failure and based its recommendation on that, but did not analytically examine the mechanism of failure because it was not covered by the terms of reference. The Authors complimented the Expert Committee's work and analyzed stability of the embankment prior to each failure. They established that the abutment well cracked during the first failure and then tilted. The exact location and angle of crack have also been established. They also concluded that the second well cracked during the 3rd and final subsidence but the exact location could not be determined because of insufficient data. The wells were very long and surrounded by clay of low consistency. The conventional approach of passive-active calculation for finding out stability of wells may not yield realistic results.