Research Report on Internal Erosion in Embankment Dams





PREFACE

The work presented in this research report has been carried out as a collaboration project at Luleå University of Technology between the research divisions:

Mining and Geotechnical Engineering, Department of Civil, Mining and Environmental Engineering

Fluid Mechanics, Department of Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering. This research project has been financially supported by SVC (Swedish Hydropower Centre). Many people have assisted us during the work with this literature survey. We would like to especially thank Prof. Sven Knutsson and Prof. Håkan Gustavsson for helpful suggestions during this project. Luleå, October 2008 Hans Mattsson, J. Gunnar I. Hellström and T. Staffan Lundström


ABSTRACT

The main objective with this literature survey is to elucidate the state of the art of internal erosion in embankment dams in order to be able to formulate a research program for numerical modelling of internal erosion in a physically sound manner. Since these processes normally are localised to specific zones in a dam, the ordinary continuum approach frequently utilised in soil modelling will not, by itself, be successful. The plan of the research group is therefore to treat internal erosion numerically as a type of localisation and describe the constitutive behaviour with micromechanical models in localised zones. In the next step, the internal erosion model developed will be implemented in a mathematical consistent fashion in a continuum model, based on e.g. the finite element method. In such software, ordinary computations of stresses, strains, deformations and pore pressures in an embankment dam can be performed; results which possible lead to conclusions about the initiation of internal erosion processes. When internal erosion is initiated, the micromechanical models will describe these processes in localised zones.


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