A COMPARISON OF THE HOLE EROSION TEST AND JET EROSION TEST

The hole erosion test (HET) and submerged jet erosion test (JET) were compared and evaluated for their ability to determine the erodibility of cohesive soils typically encountered in the modeling of embankment dam erosion and breach processes. The tests were applied to a set of remolded soil specimens prepared in parallel for each test, representing a range of cohesive soils. The methods ranked the relative erodibility of soils similarly, but produced significantly different estimates of the detachment rate coefficient and the threshold shear stress needed to initiate erosion. Both tests produced results that were consistent with a single previously established relation between erosion rate and threshold shear stress. The JET offers the greatest practical potential for characterization of a wide range of soils, but the HET may still be desirable for application specifically to piping erosion situations. The significant differences in the magnitude of the erodibility parameters obtained from each test should be accounted for in the design of erosion models.