Micromechanics of internal soil erosions and field-scale applications

The project will further the understanding of internal soil erosion across spatial and temporal scales, which are the key factors towards better predictions of erosion induced failure for risk mitigation. It will lead to the development of a novel unified computational tool capable of predicting not only the onset and failure of earth dam structures, but also the outburst flow of stored materials and their mixtures (e.g. water, mixture of water and soils, mine tailings) under different environmental conditions. The project outcomes will help improve strategies for risk assessment and mitigation to secure Australian infrastructures (i.e. water retaining structures, mine tailings dams) under global environmental changes.