ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: One of the worst natural disasters in US history, Hurricane Katrina produced extensive loss of life and property damage in the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The effects of the hurricane were particularly devastating in the city of New Orleans. Most of the damage was due to the failure of the city’s flood protection system against Katrina’s storm surge, particularly the levee system that surrounds the city. This paper presents the results of physical modeling using a geotechnical centrifuge at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, simulating the behavior of the levees at London Avenue North and South that failed during Hurricane Katrina. These levees failed without being overtopped by the storm surge. The results of a centrifuge model of the levees performance at Orleans Canal, which did not fail, are also included, in an effort to better understand the causes of the levees collapse and to check the reliability of the results. The results are fully consistent with field observations and explain the failure mechanism of the levees.
