ABSTRACT
Rockfill is used extensively in river engineering structures. This chapter focuses on the flow and stability characteristics of rockfill structures subjected to overtopping and/or to significant throughflow in a river environment. For most practical cases of flow through soils, the flow velocities and particle sizes are small enough for the flow to be laminar and for Darcy's law to adequately describe the flow regime. Turbulent flow through porous media is encountered in a range of engineering situations, including well flow and flow through filters as well as the abovementioned river engineering applications of rockfill. Early developments in the techniques of passing water over rockfill dams and through filtering dams and causeways took place in the USSR. The practice of allowing floods to pass over conventional rockfill dams during the construction phase has become economically attractive, especially in Australia.
