Erosion studies of southern Ontario tills and St. Lawrence Valley marine clays and assessment of an extreme precipitation prediction approach

Quaternary glacial deposition has covered much of southern Ontario with tills and the Saint Lawrence Valley with marine fines. Rivers incised into these materials exhibit particular geomorphologic behavior. Civil engineering works built either in (e.g. dams, bridge piers, etc.), beside (linear infrastructure such as roads, railways, etc.) or across (e.g. bridges, etc.) such rivers must consider the erosion of these cohesive sediments. There is currently very little knowledge about the erosion of these materials. This leads to design challenges and long-term maintenance considerations for hydraulic, geotechnical, transportation and structural engineering projects that can result in increased lifecycle costs and the potential for failure due to unexpected erosion. The proposed research will develop the improved understanding required to assess and predict erosion processes of rivers in glacial tills and marine clays by characterizing the erosion process and determining the threshold and rate of erosion in laboratory experiments.

Faculty Supervisor:

Susan Gaskin;Alain Mailhot

Student:

Dorothy Yeats;Liliane Gonthier;Pradeebane Vaittinada Ayar

Partner:

WSP

Discipline:

Engineering - civil

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure

University:

Program: