Experimental and theoretical investigations of seepage reduction through zoned earth dam material with special core

Abstract

Seepage through earth dams is one of the main causes of failure of earth dams through the internal movement of granules and their transport by seepage. The core in earthen dams has an important role in reducing leakage through the dam body and lowering the phreatic line. In this research, an alternative to the clay soil used in the core of the dam was innovated by conducting multi experiments for testing the permeability of the light-textured, sandy soil which is more available, with additives and it proposed as a suitable alternative. Then the innovative soil model was then used to represent the dam experimentally by means of a permeability device to measure the amount of seepage through the dam body and represent the seepage line. A finite element numerical model using Geo-Studio SEEP/W software was adopted to simulate and investigate soil with different percentages of additives and comparing the numerical and experimental results to predict the innovation model of soil. It was found that the type C sandy soil model has permeability very close to the permeability of clay soils, by using 10% Cement kiln dust (CKD) and 5% cement as additives. Moreover, soil type C was hypothetically tested as a core soil for HIMREEN earthdam of clay core soil. The result of the comparison between seepage for the hypothesis case and the real case was acceptable and they were very close.