Embankment dam breach and its outflow characteristics

With nine experimental data, the correlations of important relevant variables to the embankment-breaching phenomena are proposed. During the rise of the outflow through the breach, the amount of outflow depends largely on the breach size. The averaged final breach width ((b) over bar) is found to be in the range of 1.5H(d) < b < 3.0H(d), where H-d is the original dam height. The peak outflow through a breach (Qp) for non-cohesive homogeneous embankment is correlated from the present measured data and the number of historical data. In addition, the relation of breach deformation time (t(f)) is also presented. This depends largely on the characteristics of reservoir shape and peak outflow through the breach. Given a specified reservoir volume, the breach deformation time can be extended when a smaller median grain size of soil and a flatter slope of the downstream embankment dam are used.