Numerical and Experimental Study of Overtopping and Failure of Rockfill Dams
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 15, Issue 4
Abstract
This paper aims to present and validate a numerical technique for the simulation of the overtopping and onset of failure in rockfill dams caused by mass sliding. This goal is achieved by coupling a fluid dynamic model for the simulation of the free surface and through-flow problems together with a numerical technique for the calculation of the rockfill response and deformation. Both the flow within the dam body and in its surroundings are taken into account. An extensive validation of the resulting computational method is performed by solving several failure problems on physical models of rockfill dams for which experimental results have been obtained by the authors.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the E-DAM project of the National R+D Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (BIA2010-21350-C03-00) and by Projects RealTime (AdG-2009325) and SAFECON (AdG-267521) of the Advanced Grant Programme of the European Research Council.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 15 • Issue 4 • August 2015
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 14, 2012
Accepted: Aug 5, 2013
Published online: Aug 7, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2015
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