Seepage Modeling Assisted Optimal Design of a Homogeneous Earth Dam: Procedure Evolution

Abstract

Presented herein is a procedure for arriving at an optimal design of a homogeneous earth dam laid on an impervious foundation and provided with a drain. The procedure, heavily dependent on variably saturated flow modeling, involves optimizing a multiobjective function comprising a weighted summation of four objective functions, viz., the dam section area, seepage discharge, wetted area of the dam section and the drain area. The design variables considered in the optimization are the upstream and downstream slopes and the drain dimensions. The optimization is carried out subject to the constraints ensuring safe upstream and downstream slopes and sufficient distance between the free surface and the downstream face. Two of the objective functions (viz., the seepage discharge and the wetted area) and the constraints are implicit functions of the design variables. Their values are obtained by employing a numerical model of two-dimensional (vertical plane) variably saturated flow in a homogeneous earth dam. Optimization, conducted by the sequential unconstrained minimization technique procedure is preceded by several runs of the model for various combinations of the design variables. The discrete values of the implicit functions so generated are invoked during optimization to compute the implicit objective functions and constraints. The results are presented in the form of nondimensional design tables/curves. The design procedure is illustrated with the help of few examples.