Lessons from a failure case of an excavated floodway supported by precast cantilever pile walls

• The case study is about the failure of an excavated floodway supported by precast cantilever walls.
• A few sections of the floodway unexpectedly failed in a flood event while the water level dropped.
• The failure mechanism was explored via a series of back analyses.
• The failure could have been avoided if not ignoring channel-bed incision and rapid draw down.

The Gangweigou floodway, across the Quiren and Rende districts in Tainan, Taiwan, was designed to bypass partial discharge in the Gangweigou River during heavy rainfall events for the purpose of flood control. This floodway was an excavated open channel supported by single or double rows of precast RC cantilever pile walls on each side of its banks; these piles were installed by the jetting-assisted method. Twenty days after the completion of the floodway, it was put to work for the first time during a heavy rainfall. Unexpectedly, the cantilever pile walls in several sections failed and caused the collapse of the slope behind the walls. This paper explores the failure mechanism and the real causes of failure in this case. Based on the conditions of hydrology and hydraulics, failure processes and the results of stability analyses, it was concluded that ignoring a possible bed incision or bank erosion was likely the primary problem with the improper design. The most critical condition was when the water level in the floodway quickly dropped, which resulted in rapid drawdown. The failure of the case could have been avoided if both the rapid drawdown condition and the potential of the channel bed incision were considered.