Stability of Earth Dam Slope PDF
Stability of Earth Dam Slope PDF
Stability of Earth Dam Slope PDF
There are three conditions for which the stability analysis of an earth
dam is to be carried out. These are the ‘end of construction’ , ‘steady
seepage’ , and ‘sudden drawdown’ conditions.
On the other hand, relative to the upstream slope, the seepage forces
act inward and help keeping the slope stable.
Once the flow net is drawn, the boundary pore water pressures acting
normally on the vertical sides of the slice and on the base of the slice
(part of the assumed slip circle) can be determined.
In the simplified analysis, both the effective and normal forces acting
on the sides of the slice are assumed to balance out and therefore not
considered.
Only the boundary pore water pressure acting normal to the base of
the slice is considered along with the downward acting total weight of
the slice.
The forces acting on the typical slice are shown Fig. 1. The top flow
line passes through the slice.
The pore pressure head, hw At A , the centre of the base of the slice, is
equal to difference in elevation between point A and the point where
the equipotential line passing through A intersects the top flow line
(point B in Fig.1).
This follows the fact that all points on the top flow line are at
atmospheric pressure.
This force is normal to the base and therefore does not contribute to
the driving moment.
Fig.1 Forces acting on a slice-steady seepage case
The total weight of the slice W is due to the bulk unit weight of the
soil above the top flow line and saturated unit weight below it
The most critical condition of sudden drawdown means that while the
water pressure acting on the upstream slope at ‘full reservoir’ condition
is removed, there is no appreciable change in water content of the
saturated soil within the embankment.
The saturated weight of the slope produces the shearing stresses while
the shearing resistance is decreased considerably because of the
development of the pore water pressure which do not dissipate rapidly.
The compression of this water air pore fluid under increasing load of
embankment causes the build up of pore pressure in fine – grained soils.
Thus, the prediction of the pore pressures during the design stage is
rather difficult, but as the pore pressures directly affect the shear
strength of a soil, an estimation of the construction pore pressures has to
be made in order that a stability analysis be carried out.
One of the methods of estimating the pore pressure based on the results
of laboratory tests, is given by Hilf (1984) .
Assuming that the pressure in the pore water and pore air are always
equal and that no dissipation of pore pressure occurs due to drainage, a
decrease in embankment volume is caused by the compression of air and
its passing into solution in the pore water.
If u is the induced pore air pressure, according to Hilf,
u=
𝑝
0 Eq.2
𝑉𝑎 +𝐻𝑉𝑤 −
Where
𝑝0 = pressure of pore air before consolidation( absolute
atmospheric pressure)
= embankment compression as a proportion of original
embankment volume.
𝑉𝑎 = volume of free air in soil pores present in unit volume of
embankment soil before start of consolidation.
𝑉𝑤 = volume of pore water present in unit volume of embankment
soil.
H𝑉𝑤 = volume of dissolved air in volume 𝑉𝑤 of water,
H = Henry’s constant, equal to 0.02
For no drainage, cannot be greater than 𝑉𝑎 . When = 𝑉𝑎 , the entire
air goes into solution and the soil becomes saturated.
e is the change in void ratio and 𝑒0 the initial void ratio of the
specimen; e/(1+ 𝑒0 ) corresponds to .
Where full saturation does not occur under the range of effective stress
being considered, the range of e/(1+ 𝑒0 ) values are taken from zero to
its value corresponding to the maximum stress considered.
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