M. Marchi

M. Marchi
University of Bologna | UNIBO · Department of Civil, Chemical, Environmental and Materials Engineering DICAM

PhD, M.Sc.

About

54
Publications
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282
Citations

Publications

Publications (54)
Chapter
Full-text available
The city of Ravenna (Italy) is worldwide famous for the well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architecture with eight buildings protected by UNESCO as part of the World Heritage Site “Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna”. Climate change effects have increased the site vulnerability to natural hazards, in particular flooding and subsidence, two p...
Chapter
Full-text available
Backward erosion piping (BEP) is an internal erosion process that may develop as a consequence of seepage processes through the aquifers underneath river embankment structures. This phenomenon can be identified in the field by observing the formation of sand boils on the ground surface at or near the embankment toe. Along the Po River, more than 13...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
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...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Considering the potential collapse of river embankment structures on riverine flood hazard assessment significantly improves the reliability of the inundation maps. Breach formations should be included in inundation modelling by defining their geometry, and in particular their length. This contribution aims at testing the application of the Zomorod...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This contribution describes the methodology adopted for the systematic collection of data on the main breaches experienced by the embankment systems affected by the exceptional flood events occurred in May 2023 in Emilia-Romagna. To this purpose, all main observed failures and their characteristics have been catalogued and extensive visual evidence...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Sommario L'erosione retrogressiva nei terreni di fondazione (backward erosion piping) degli argini fluviali è un fenomeno che può svilupparsi in concomitanza di intensi eventi di piena e che si manifesta con la formazione dei 'fontanazzi', in corrispondenza del piano campagna. Tale processo interessa numerosi tratti degli argini maestri del fiume P...
Chapter
Full-text available
Sand boil formation at the toe of river embankments is the typical manifestation of initiation and progression of an internal erosion process known as backward erosion piping, which is recognized to be a major concern in many river systems worldwide. In Italy, more than 130 sand boils have been detected along the Po River, many of them experiencing...
Article
Full-text available
Sand boil formation at the toe of river embankments is the typical manifestation of the initiation and progression of an internal erosion process known as backward erosion piping, which is recognized to be a major concern in many river systems worldwide. In Italy, more than 130 sand boils have been detected along the Po River, many of them experien...
Article
Assessing the vulnerability of built heritage requires a multidisciplinary approach, in which the interaction between buildings and soil may change during the lifespan of the structures, due to the deformation of the soil or a change in its properties. Such modifications may occur naturally over time or as a consequence of environmental variations,...
Conference Paper
The city of Ravenna, in northern Italy, is worldwide famous for the well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architectures characterized by fabulous mosaics that have earned the UNESCO World Heritage status. The constantly growing attention towards their conservation has promoted research activities that focus on the effect of the considerable cumul...
Chapter
River embankments are designed to face hydraulic actions produced by river level fluctuations. Breach occurrence on these earth structures could be driven by various factors, all possibly concurring in the collapse during an extreme event. Among the possible mechanisms that may lead the structure to failure, the onset and progression of erosion phe...
Chapter
The city of Ravenna, in northern Italy, is worldwide famous for the well-preserved late Roman and Byzantine architectures characterized by fabulous mosaics that have earned the UNESCO World Heritage status. The constantly growing attention towards their conservation has promoted research activities that focus on the effect of the considerable cumul...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The paper deals with subsidence and flooding risks associated to the Archaeological Site of Santa Croce, encompassing a 5th century church together with the remains of a Roman domus and its mosaics, located in the centre of the historic town of Ravenna (Italy). A geotechnical field campaign and the installation of a new piezometer monitoring system...
Preprint
River embankments are designed to face hydraulic actions produced by river level fluctuations. Breach occurrence on these earth structures could be driven by various factors, all possibly concurring in the collapse during an extreme event. Among the possible mechanisms that may lead the structure to failure , the onset and progression of erosion ph...
Chapter
Full-text available
This paper presents a reliability analysis referred to backward erosion piping phenomena. The study is carried out on a cross-section of the major Italian watercourse, the Po River, where evidence of piping effects, namely a sand boil of remarkable size, has been periodically detected during past high-water events. The initiation of the process has...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Sommario Il contributo descrive una strategia per la modellazione numerica bidimensionale del moto di filtrazione in regime transitorio che si sviluppa in una sezione arginale del fiume Po, al variare del livello idrometrico del fiume. La sezione di indagine, che si trova in località Guarda Ferrarese (FE), è sede di un ''fontanazzo'' (sand boil) st...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Backward erosion piping is one of the most critical issues for the stability of many river embankments worldwide. The article presents results from an extensive geotechnical campaign carried out on a section of the Po river embankments (Italy), prone to backward erosion piping. The aim of the investigations was twofold: firstly, identifying the str...
Conference Paper
Post-depositional phenomena can produce significant changes in the geotechnical properties of soils. Although the identification of the effect of such phenomena on the soil structure may contribute significantly to the interpretation of the soil mechanical behaviour, their characterization is not routinely carried out in practice. In this context,...
Chapter
Full-text available
Garisenda and Asinelli, also known as the Two Towers, are the best preserved medieval towers in the city of Bologna (northern Italy). They are worldwide famous symbols of the past power and wealth of the city which in the 12th century counted more than 75 masonry towers and tower-houses. In order to preserve these invaluable monuments, a deep under...
Chapter
Full-text available
The Osservanza church in Bologna (Italy), whose construction is dated back 1406, has under-gone several restorations in the last 40 years, as a consequence of a severe progression of the crack pattern affecting its walls and, to a lesser extent, the structure of the adjacent convent. The paper describes the results of geotechnical investigations, c...
Article
The Garisenda Tower and the Asinelli Tower, also widely known as the Two Towers, are the best preserved and famous medieval towers in the city of Bologna (Northern Italy). Standing one close to the other, right in the heart of the city centre, the Two Towers are delicate remains of the old towered city, which counted more than 75 towers in the 12th...
Article
Sand boils are the surface manifestation of an erosion process, known as backward erosion piping, which may take place beneath river embankments during high-water events. The risk of embankment failure greatly increases in locations affected by sand boils. Numerous studies have been carried out, mainly at the laboratory scale, providing significant...
Article
The article presents a three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model of the groundwater flow beneath a river embankment, aimed at developing a simple and reliable numerical strategy for the identification of hydraulic conditions that cause the reactivation of sand boils in flood defense systems prone to recurrent backward erosion piping. The see...
Article
Paleosols are recurrent features in alluvial successions and provide information about past sedimentary dynamics and climate change. Through sedimentological analysis on six sediment cores, the mud‐dominated succession beneath the medieval ‘Two Towers’ of Bologna was investigated down to 100 m depth. A succession of weakly developed paleosols (Ince...
Chapter
Backward erosion piping is one of the most critical issues for the stability of the Po River embankments, which are reported to have experienced more than one hundred episodes of sand boils over the last century. This phenomenon is particularly widespread in the Po River for structural, hydrogeological and climatic reasons. This paper describes an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
This paper outlines the multidisciplinary approach developed for the definition of the geotechnical model of the foundations of Asinelli and Garisenda towers in Bologna. Historical information and previous site investigations were collected and analysed. Then a new geotechnical investigation was carried out in 2016, which enabled accurate identific...
Chapter
Full-text available
A recent study (Aielli et al. 2017) about sand boil reactivations in the major Po river banks (Italy) has demonstrated how a structured database of historic information can significantly contribute to better understanding of seepage phenomena and provide a practical tool for safe management of hydraulic works. The primary aim of the present work is...
Article
Full-text available
When the dimensions of the base of a retaining wall have been selected by, for example, some form of limit state analysis (Butterfield, 2012) an assessment ought also to be made of the displacement of the wall during its working life. This paper presents a simple rational means of doing so, illustrated by but not limited to, loads imposed during a...
Article
Full-text available
There is mounting evidence in favour of replacing the e against log10(s0v ) diagram, conventionally used to represent soil compressibility in an oedometer, with a log(v) against log(s0v ) diagram, which significantly improves the linearity of virgin loading and unloading paths. This paper presents a simple, new formulation of the 'intrinsic' compre...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The crucial role of geotechnical engineering in the preservation of historic heritage is already well known and the need for accurate site investigations and long term monitoring data is essential for a proper study of valuable historical monuments. In such a framework, this paper describes the case study of the two leaning towers of Bologna (Italy...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The reliability of river embankments is essential for flood risk management. The Po River, which flows through the North of Italy, is safeguarded over half of its length by major river embankments. Performance assessment of such water-retaining structures has become a major concern following some significant flood events in the past. Among the poss...
Article
Full-text available
The Po River (Northern Italy) is the longest watercourse in Italy and over half of its length is safeguarded by major river embankments. Their stability is crucial for the local communities, being the Po River plain densely populated. Among all possible failure mechanisms, backward erosion piping at the interface between the bottom sandy aquifer an...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The results presented in this paper were obtained as part of a comprehensive study aimed at investigating the post-earthquake stability conditions of canal levees damaged by the May 2012 Emilia (Italy) seismic sequence. This paper is focused on the use of the seismic dilatometer test (SDMT) in the context of the study. In particular the following i...
Article
Full-text available
The seismic sequence that in May 2012 struck a large area of the river Po Valley (Emilia-Romagna region, Northern Italy) triggered significant fractures and deformations in a number of riverbanks located close to the earthquake epicenter. Among them, one of the most severely damaged structures turned out to be the banks of an irrigation canal known...
Article
Since its construction in 14th century, the Frari bell tower has been affected by a slow but constant differential settlement with respect to the adjacent masonry structures of the basilica. About 15 years ago, the clearly evident signs of structure instabilities provided the impetus for the implementation of modern remedial measures, first in foun...
Conference Paper
The Po River is the major Italian watercourse. Over half its length is controlled with embankments as protection measures against heavy floodings. Recently, the Italian Government has funded a project for the evaluation of the seismic stability of about 90 km of embankments of the Po River. The project mainly aims at the seismic stability analyses...
Article
Hydraulic fracturing in clayey soils can be triggered by either tensile or shear failure. In this paper, the physical meanings of various equations to predict fracture initiation pressure proposed in the past are discussed using the cavity expansion theory. In particular, when fracturing pressure is plotted against initial confining pressure, publi...
Article
Full-text available
Many ancient towers are afflicted by stability problems. Shallow foundations are typical components of such structures, and their behaviour strongly influences the overall safety of the tower. This paper is concerned with two major, geotechnically related, failure modes of tower foundations: (a) bearing capacity failure, due to lack of strength of...

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