Cemagref‘s Hydraulic Structures team has been using a new experimental platform since 2006 to test leak-detection systems in levees. The platform, financed by the Carnot fund, acts as a stimulus for a number of partnership research projects on structure monitoring.
For over 20 years, Cemagref has carried out research on the watertightness of earthwork hydraulic structures in close collaboration with public and private partners. The researchers carried out experimental tests either in the lab or on real levees. In 2006, it became clear that a scientific platform was required to test the performance of structures approximately half-scale in size. The PEERINE platform, which is experimental platform for internal erosion and flows, was created thanks to a 95,000 Euro grant from the Carnot fund.
In the beginning, the platform was used for the Hydrodetect partnership-research project. The goal of the work, coordinated by the TenCate company, was to assess the capacity of a geotextile fabric equipped with optical fibres to detect water leaks, the main cause of internal erosion in a structure. Two levee managers, EDF (French national electricity company) and VNF (Voies Navigables de France), joined the project.
Today, the project has been renamed Safedyke and includes a number of European partners. It has also received the EUREKA label, an award for partnership research in Europe.
Since then, PEERINE has been used for other projects, such as the the ERINOH
Paul Royet works for CEMAGREF. He can be reached at paul.royet@cemagref.fr. This article first appeared in the Spring 2009 issue of the Cemagref Newsletter.
