NRC video A

Watching Liquefaction

This video record was taken through the glass wall of the wave flume during our hydraulic model testing at the NRC laboratory in Ottawa. Here you are watching the liquefaction failure of a submerged sand embankment and its subsequent recovery of stability, albeit at a lower elevation and slacker side slopes.

The berm was constructed by underwater sand slurry jetting, but here, without the beneficial application of inner drainage; consequently, the berm has flatter side slopes and higher void ratios than if it had been constructed while applying inward seepage forces.

In the web page "HYDRODYNAMICS" (linked below) Hodge offers his interpretation of what he believes is going on here between the sand and the water in this interesting, if somewhat bewildering, dynamical case of two-phased physics.