Investigating scale effects on breach evolution of overtopped sand embankments

The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of scale on embankment breach processes. Relatively large scale physical models to study the embankment breach processes are expensive and time consuming. Relatively small scale experiments give better opportunity to explore the embankment breach events, but the scale effect should be considered. In this study, two small scale overtopped sand embankments were investigated in a laboratory flume. The results of these experiments are compared with the results of a previously studied large scale experiment. The analysis shows that, both the large and the small scale embankments follow almost the same embankment erodibility processes and the same rate of breach. It can be concluded that, small scale embankments can be used to study breaching events due to overtopping even with the scale effect.