68th Canadian Geotechnical Conference and 7th Canadian Permafrost Conference

THE SANTANA PORT ACCIDENT: COULD IT BE A SENSITIVE CLAY FLOWSLIDE UNDER THE EQUATOR?

Session: Problematic Soils and Ground Improvement II / Sols problématiques et amélioration du comportement II

Sandro Sandroni, PUC-Rio (Brazil)
Serge Leroueil, Professor Université Laval (Canada)
Elaine Barreto, M.Sc Student PUC-Rio Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

In March, 28, 2013, an abrupt slope movement involving about half a million cubic meters of soil took place at a Port situated in the North margin of the mouth of the Amazon river. Most of the soft clayey silt flowed under water for a distance of about 350 meters. After the accident a site and laboratory geotechnical testing program has been carried out. This paper is the first publication after the accident and intends to present: • Basic sequence and mechanism of failure; • Typical geotechnical characteristics of the soft soil • Preliminary analyses of the movement • Speculations on the cause of failure and on the factors that may have contributed to the sensitivity soil. The flow that followed failure is similar to those that occur in Canadian and Scandinavian highly sensitive clays. This kind of behavior in clayey soils does not seem to have precedents on the Brazilian coast or in any other tropical areas.