Determination of Excess Pore Pressure in Earth Dam After Earthquake

Abstract eng:
Pore pressure within the core of the embankment dams play a decisive role in performance of the earth dams. Although it may be high during the construction stage of the dam, it will be dissipated to a reasonable level as the consolidation process of the core is progressing in the long term. However, if these dams experience heavy earthquakes in short time, the rapid increase of the pore pressure may put the dam at risk in some critical conditions. In this paper the Excess pore pressure development of the Karkheh large embankment dam during the earthquake loading has been investigated. The Karkheh Dam is the largest storage dam in Iran that has been recently constructed in the south-west of the country. This is an earth dam by a mixed clay core. The length of the dam crest is 3030 m and its maximum height at the river section is 127 m. In the analyses carried out in this study, the FLAC-2D was used. To prepare the initial requirements for doing the dynamic analyses, the dam was modeled from the beginning of the construction. Different construction stages and also the impounding stages of the dam were modeled by 32 stages from the beginning of the dam construction up to Dec.2004. After application of the selected accelerogram to the model and doing the dynamic analysis, considerable changes happen both in values and in the pattern of the pore pressure developments. The results of the dynamic analyses revealed that the value of the developed pore pressure at the mid. Levels of the core increases and its distribution pattern changes during an earthquake.

• Export as: BibTeX | MARC | MARCXML | DC | EndNote | NLM | RefWorks
• Add to your basket