Evaluating the Wetting Induced Deformation of Rockfill Dams Using a Hypoplastic Constitutive Model

Abstract

Evaluating the wetting induced deformation of the shell is one of the most important issues in designing a high rockfill dam. Excessive wetting deformation and the relevant stress deterioration in adjacent impervious structures may cumber the normal operation of the engineering and seriously risk the safety of the dam. In this paper, a hypoplastic creep model is incorporated into a finite element procedure to study the wetting induced deformation of a rockfill dam. Considerable lateral movement towards the upstream and an additional wetting collapse presented in the upstream shell induced by reservoir impounding is effectively predicted by the finite element model. The reasonable results confirm the feasibility of applying the hypoplastic model to the evaluation of the wetting induced deformation in dam engineering.