Review on case history on earthen dam failures

Abstract
Introduction
Case histories in geotechnical engineering serve a number of useful purposes, one of which is to
provide real data against which designers can test their predictions of behavior. There is ample
evidence to indicate that, despite the many advances made in geotechnical engineering and
engineering science in the past the designer’s ability to predict the behavior of designed
structures accurately has not increased. The reasons for this apparent lack of improvement are
numerous, and perhaps it will always. Today the third world is faced with a lot of challenges
with regard to designing and maintenance of infrastructure in the sectors of water resources and
environmental engineering. One of the challenges faced under these sectors is that of Dam
Failures with emphasis on those made of earthen embankments. Emphasis is placed on this type
of dam owing to the fact that they are the most common types of dams in the world and reports
have shown that the frequency of failure of such dams is about four times greater than that
observed for concrete and masonry dams be as difficult to make accurate geotechnical
predictions as it is to make predictions of human behavior. This review paper considers a number
of case histories related to embankment dam failures. Failure of a dam can result in a major
disaster with devastating losses of both human life and property. In some developed parts of the
world, the problem of dam failures has always been of great importance because of their
economic and environmental attributes. Therefore, the problem has always given rise to a
particular interest among hydraulic engineers in estimating downstream valley that are risk of
inundation in instances of dam failures. The phenomenon is time-dependent, multiphase (water-
soil interaction), and non-homogeneous (different materials, various degrees of soil compaction,
and so on). Hydraulics, hydrology, sediment transport mechanism, and structural and
geotechnical aspects are all involved in dam failures. Erosion of an earth-dam can be primed by
low or weak points on the crest or on the downstream face, by piping or overtopping. Progressive
erosion then widens and deepens the breach, increasing outflow and erosion rate. earth dams are
less rigid and hence more susceptible to failure. Every past failure of such a dam has contributed
to an increase in the knowledge of the earth dam designers. Earthen dams may fail, like other
engineering structures, due to improper designs, faulty constructions, lack of maintenance.in this
review paper an attempt has been made to discuss the main causes of failure of earthen dams -
overtopping, internal erosion and piping and present the case histories of the earthen dams failed
in the world due to these causes. The case histories reported in this paper are chosen not for the
entity of the damage occurred, but for their representative characteristics.
Methods and material
Result
Main cause of embankment dam failure
From the above discussion it is apparent that the main causes of failures of embankment dams
are closely related to the erosion of embankment materials caused by either overtopping or
seepage erosion/piping. discussed the mechanism of embankment erosion from overtopping. For
non-cohesive embankments, materials are removed from the embankment in layers by tractive
stresses. The erosion process from overtopping begins at a point where the tractive shear stress
exceeds a critical resistance that keeps the material in place. For cohesive embankments,
breaching takes place by head cutting. Usually, a head cut initiates near the downstream toe of
the dam, and then advances upstream until the crest of the dam is breached. The basic erosion
mechanisms and erosion rate are different for granular and cohesive embankments. For granular
embankments, surface slips take place quickly due to the seepage existing on the downstream
slope; and hence granular materials are removed rapidly layer by layer. For cohesive
embankments, no seepage exists on the slope because of the low permeability. Instead, erosion
often begins at the embankment toe and advances upstream, undercutting the slope and in turn
causing the removal of large chunks of materials due to tensile or shear failure of the soil on the
over steepened slope. Other than overtopping, internal erosion and piping are another common
mode of failures of embankment dams. Piping phenomenon is the progressive removal of soil
particles from a mass by a percolating water, leading to the development of channels. seepage
erosion occurs when the water flowing through cracks or defect erodes the soil from the walls of
the crack or defect. Internal erosion and piping can be divided into four phases: initiation and
continuation of erosion, progression to form a pipe and formation of a breach. In general, the
seepage erosion/piping failure initiates when the erosion/piping resistant forces are smaller than
the erosion/piping driving forces, resulting in the removal of soil particles through large voids or
existing discontinuities in soil. After a large amount of embankment materials has been washed
away by seeping flow, a free path named pipe is formed through the dam. Then, the erosion
advances quite rapidly until the portion of the materials above the pipe becomes unstable and
collapses. After the collapse, the subsequent erosion proceeds in the same fashion as in the case
of overtopping.
Failure caused by over toping
The water may overtop the dam, if the design flood is underestimated or if the spillway is of
insufficient capacity or if the spillway gates are not properly operated. Sufficient freeboard
should, therefore, be provided as an additional safety measure. The analysis of case histories of
this cause of dam failure reveals the inadequacy of formerly used hydrological methods to
estimate extreme floods and the specifications for the selection of the spillway design conditions.
Recently the advances on hydrology and on climatic processes have allowed obtaining better
estimations of extreme flood events with a reduction of overtopping occurrence. Hence,
hydrological reliable data are essential for dam safety and criteria of minimum risk have to be
assumed in the evaluation of the design flood.
Failure caused by seepage
Controlled seepage or limited uniform seepage is in evitable in all earth dams, and ordinarily it
does not produce any harm. However, uncontrolled or concentrated seepage through the dam
body or through its foundation may lead to piping or sloughing and the subsequent failure of the
dam. Piping is the progressive erosion and subsequent removal of the soil grains from within the
body of the dam or the foundation of the dam. Sloughing, is the progressive removal of soil
from the wet downstream face. More than 1/3rd of the earth dams has failed because of these
reasons. The seepage analysis has been performed to predict pore pressure distributions under
full reservoir condition by steady-state seepage analysis and under drawdown condition by
transient seepage analysis. The estimate of total quantity of seepage losses through an
embankment slopes is based on the difference in elevation of water between the upstream and
downstream side of the earthen dam along with the hydraulic conductivity of respective
embankment material. According to the Darcy’s law, the specific discharge through a saturated
soil medium is given by
q=ki
where q = the specific discharge (i.e., discharge per unit area) through the soil medium, k = the
hydraulic conductivity of soil material, i = slope of gross available hydraulic head.
Slope stability analysis is performed to assess the safe design of human-made or natural slopes
(e.g. embankments, road cuts, excavations, landfills etc.) and the equilibrium conditions. The
main objectives of slope stability analysis are finding endangered areas, investigation of potential
failure mechanisms, determination of the slope sensitivity to different triggering mechanisms,
designing of optimal slopes with regard to safety, reliability and economics, designing possible
remedial measures, e.g. barriers and stabilization. SEEP/W is a useful tool that uses numerical
modeling to solve complex seepage problems. This part of the software is to investigate the leak
and flow of water in the soil. The procedure that uses for analyzing the problem are listed below.
(1) Analysis Types There are two fundamental seepage analysis type, the steady state and
transient type. The analysis type of this review is steady state, which is the total seepage passing
through the dam body and foundation do not change with the change in time. This type of
analysis does not consider how long it takes to achieve a steady condition. The model will reach
a solved set of pressure and flow condition for the given set of unique boundary conditions
applied to it and that is the extent of the analysis. In the study the analysis type carried by steady
state for homogenous and zoned dam with foundation.
(2) Importing the geometry of the dam and draw region The geometry of the dam is the profile of
the dam that is, the impervious core and shell material, the dam height, the upstream and
downstream slope of the dam, the top and bottom width, the maximum, normal and minimum
water level, and horizontal filter length and an inclined chimney drain. Three methods used for
importing the geometry of the dam. For simple dam profile direct sketch of the dam, for complex
dam profile copy the coordinate points of the dam from excel sheet and paste on key point or by
importing the dam profile after saved in AutoCAD dxf file. The second method will be selected
for importing the geometry. - Regions (closed polygon) are created by connecting points and are
used to define areas of different material properties and conditions. It is important to note that
regions cannot overlap one another and must maintain continuity (no gaps).
(3) Assign/Input materials The next step in developing a numerical model of SEEP/W is to
assign the type and property of materials in to the regions using criterion. Step-by-step
instructions to assign materials are provided below. Utilize the KEYIN function and click on
MATERIALS. Add a new material, provide it a name (core, shell and foundation) and assign it a
color. Use the material model drop down menu to select one of the options: A. Saturated Only –
Use if a steady state analysis is conducted on a domain that will remain saturated for the entire
duration of the simulation. This used for foundation. B. Saturated/Unsaturated – Use if
unsaturated zones are expected to occur. Use for core and shell material.
(4) Setting Boundary Condition When specifying seepage boundary condition, there are two
fundamental options- specifying flux (Q) or head (H). Specifying flux is the Neumann boundary
and specifying constant head for stored water at lakes, river, or reservoir is the Dirichilete
boundary condition. In this research, the normal and current water level (head) set as a boundary
and a special condition that makes the pressure zero is the actual boundary condition used at the
downstream toe side. In the draw boundary condition menu of SEEP/W, if the option pressure
head, P is selected and action 0 is set for the downstream face slope, SEEP/W find the z
coordinate of each node and sets the total head equal to the z coordinate. To assign boundary
conditions, setting up the boundary conditions in the model is an essential component as the
solution is dependent upon the type of boundary conditions defined in the model. The
fundamental types of boundary conditions are described below.
 Potential Seepage Face – A boundary condition where both the head and total flux are
unknown along a downstream slope. This allows the solver to locate the position where a
seepage face may develop.
 Head – A boundary condition used where there is free water present within the domain such as
a reservoir behind a dam (on upstream slope), or a river on the flood side of a dike.
 Zero Pressure – A boundary condition that used to model a drains and areas where pore water
pressure dissipates near instantly such as at horizontal filter drain.
(5) Locate the flux section SEEP/W has the ability to compute the instantaneous seepage
volume rate that flows across a user defined section for a steady state or transient analysis. This
is a very useful tool for isolating flow volumes to specific regions of interest and it can save you
manually adding up individual nodal flows in the case of a drain or seepage face that is
comprised of many nodes. The objective is to compute the total flow across a vertical section of
the element. Flux sections can be used in many ways, because they can be drawn any place
across which you want to know the flux.
(6) Verify and optimize the data Each analysis and input data are verify automatically before
solving, and any errors are reported on the verification tools. Verify tool checks for errors in the
overlapping geometry lines, input data and region that do not have any data points.
(7) Analysis Result the final step is solving the problem and analyzing the results and make
conclusions. Seepage analyses are often conducted for three major applications: calculating flow
rates, gathering hydraulic gradient data for determining factors of safety against piping and to be
used as a parent analysis for a slope stability analysis.
Discussion