Design Standards For The United States Army Corps Of Engineers

Design standards are the explicit goals that a project must be achieved in order to be successful. Generally, design standard is governed by United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Design standard for the earthen levee for the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is EM 1110-2-1913. First, any soil for the levee construction is accepted and defined by EM 1110-2-1913 which can be obtained nearby to the project area. However, those very wet, fine-grained, or highly organic soils are excluded by EM1110-2-1913. Besides, moisture content of the in-situ soils is required to verify according to the design standard. High cost can be caused for adding water to the drying soils

Three types of compaction are defined as compacted, semi-compacted, and un-compacted. A compacted levee is usually used for an area where the strong levee of low compressibility is required adjacent to concrete structure or forming parts of highway system. Besides, it is used as a steep-sloped levee for an area with the high land use and high populations. It requires an initial loose lift thickness about 6 to 9 inches with the compaction equipment like sheep-foot or rubber-tired roller. During the compaction, a suitable range of soil’s water content is important to be possessed which respect to the standard effort optimum water content. On the other hand, semi-compacted levee is suitable used for an area without space limitation, so steep-slope levee is not required. This type of levee needs the specification of lift thickness about 12 inches which compacted by using sheep-foot or rubber-tired roller as well. Next, un-compacted levee is only used for temporary or emergency cases. It is constructed fill cast as thick layer with little or no compaction, so it is not suggested by United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to be used in normal levee. Nevertheless, it can be utilized to protect those agricultural areas without endanger human

For the steep-sided levee, it is required to be constructed with maximum side slope of 1V: 2H. It is also built from high-grade soils that are compacted by suitable compaction machinery under the optimum moisture content. On the other hand, sand levee is made of low-graded soils and considered as shallow-sided levee with the side slope of 1V: 5H in order to resist the deterioration from seepage and wave impact. These types of geometry associated with adequate levee materials are able to against erosion or scour. Other than that, design standard also mentions the final elevation of the top of levee must account for the future settlement as