Evolution of Soil Settlements under a Rockfill Dam Based on Potential Earthquake Harmfulness (PEH) 'Case of Boumerdes Earthquake, Algeria 2003'

Abstract

Earthquakes are part of the natural cataclysms that are responsible for the destruction of entire cities, causing the deaths of millions of people and often have disastrous economic consequences. Therefore, it is important to consider measures of the intensity of seismic movement in risk analysis (Potential Earthquake Harmfulness ‘PEH’). The purpose of this study is to model the mass of soil under a rockfill embankment in order to evaluate the soil settlement under the effect of an earthquake of Boumerdes (Algeria 2003) using “plaxis” finite element code. The PEH characterizes in our study the Aria intensity IA(t) and the cumulative absolute velocity CAV(t), on the one hand, and on the other hand, empirical correlations between the indicators of harmfulness (PEH) and the settlements under the base of the dike. The correlations thus obtained (Uy-PEH) are slightly influenced by the gravitational loads and a tighter dispersion of the point cloud is observed on the correlations (Uy-IA).