Analysis of Seepage through Dam Foundation Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) Meshless Method

Abstract

Water seepage is a common problem in most of dam sites, in which the impounded water finds the escape routes with least resistance through the dam body and foundation. Typically, grid-based approaches have been frequently employed to tackle this problem. However, generation of appropriate grid is a very burdensome and time-consuming task specifically in problems with complex geometry. To overcome this problem, this paper employs Lagrangian-based smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) meshless method to analyze the seepage through dam foundation. The SPH method is applied to Chapar-Abad Dam located in northwest of Iran. The presence of thick alluvium deposits with different permeability coefficients demonstrates possible seepage problems. Although implementation of the SPH method in much easier than grid-based methods, the results of this method are in good agreement with those of a frequently used grid-based method, i.e. Finite Elements Method (FEM). To attain a general vision of seepage flow beneath the dam, the seepage maps obtained from both SPH and FEM methods are shown separately and the results are compared. Conclusively, the results demonstrate the practicability and performance of SPH method in analysis of seepage specifically for the problems with complex geometry.