A novel medium-scale experimental setup to investigate backward erosion piping

Backward erosion piping (BEP) is a phenomenon that can develop in the subsoils of river embankments during intense flood events, manifesting at the ground level as emerging sand boils. This process affects more than 130 sections of the Po river main embankments and many major streams in Europe and worldwide. This contribution aims to illustrate the experimental setup recently developed at the University of Bologna, for the medium-scale physical modelling of the BEP process. The experimental layout and testing procedures are briefly presented, along with some preliminary results from the ongoing laboratory activities.