Rapid Drawdown Analyses of Sparmos Dam
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 9
Abstract
The upstream or waterside slopes of water-retaining structures, such as earth dams and levees, must be designed for rapid drawdown (RDD). While multiple instances of RDD failure have occurred, only two case histories, Pilarcitos Dam and Walter Bouldin Dam, have sufficient shear strength data to be useful for validation of analysis procedures. This paper documents a RDD failure at Sparmos Dam in Northern Greece in 2016, including the results of index, compaction, and triaxial compression tests on soil from the dam. Based on the collected data, the factor of safety following RDD is calculated using two effective stress and two undrained methods. The effective stress method and both undrained methods are able to predict the Sparmos Dam failure, if a conservative interpretation of shear strength is employed. In contrast, the effective stress evaluation of RDD using uncoupled transient seepage analysis produces invalid results when appropriate values of the coefficient of consolidation are used. The Sparmos Dam case history highlights the need for ongoing study of RDD analysis procedures and shows that pore pressures from uncoupled transient seepage are unreliable for RDD.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the generous support of Dr. J. Michael Duncan and Virginia Tech for providing funding for travel to perform the field investigation and soil index testing and to ship soil samples to the first author’s laboratory.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 9 • September 2021
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 20, 2019
Accepted: Apr 21, 2021
Published online: Jul 6, 2021
Published in print: Sep 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Dec 6, 2021
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