Abstract
Analysis of earth dams is generally conducted in three stages of stability, deformability and water penetration analysis. Lack of sufficient attention to leakage, as one of the most important issues, leads to erosion and destruction of slope stability. The aim of current paper is to analyze the earth dam leakage with respect to the existing uncertainty in soil hydraulic parameters. In this research, the Monte Carlo (MC) method was used to calculate soil hydraulic parameters. Using these parameters, analysis of Alborz earth dam leakage by means of SEEP/W model based on the finite elements method was investigated. Due to the hydraulic conditions of the core soil, the total head value, pore water pressure, and water flux in core region will change. The results indicate that uncertainty in the hydraulic parameters of Alborz earth dam are significant, thus risk is important in this dam. The application of the proposed methodology in estimation of leakage from Alborz earth dam in Mazandaran province reveals its efficiency and proper accuracy in predicting the amount of leakage flow in earth dams with respect to the possible changes in the hydraulic parameters of the soil. Moreover, it was found that the quantity of seepage increases considerably when the dam is without core, therefore, the core is very necessary to decrease the value of seepage through the earth dam.
Highlights
By development of urbanization and human activities, drought has increased
Analyses of earth dams are generally conducted in three orders of stability, deformability and water penetration analysis [2]
In case of the avoidance of some issues such as the sudden drop of water levels of the reservoir due to releasing and watering and the uncertainty of soil hydraulic parameters, lead to sudden changes of the boundary conditions of earth dams in terms of pore water pressure and degree of saturation and enable instability of the earth dams [3]
Summary
By development of urbanization and human activities, drought has increased. About 13% of the world’s population is currently deprived from drinking water. The earth dams are one of the most important and crucial structures for the storage of water and are used in water resources management [1]. The high cost of construction and the severity of damages caused by the failure of earth dams and uncertainties in predicting the behavior of geotechnical structures in terms of the nature of the earth materials, highlight the needs for care and measurement of earth dams. Analyses of earth dams are generally conducted in three orders of stability, deformability and water penetration analysis [2]. Most of the dams worldwide are facing the problem of leakage. This phenomenon threatens their storage function and sometimes causes unpredicted disasters. The studies conducted on numerous destructed earth dams indicated that around 30 % of these destructions have been caused by the uncontrolled leakage from dam body and foundation [1]
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