Use of Soil-Rock Mixtures in Dam Construction
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 140, Issue 8
Abstract
The employment of nontraditional materials such as soil-rock mixtures, for economic and environmental reasons, in the construction of earthworks poses some new challenges for compaction techniques and their control, and for the determination of the embankment characteristics that result from the compaction method. Those characteristics experience important changes according to the relative percentages of the existing fractions. Usually, this kind of material results from bulky rock extraction without explosives, and it can include some large-size particles (greater than 0.5 m). In addition, the measured deformations associated with these materials have been larger than expected. For the execution control of the soil-rock mixtures from the Odelouca dam borrow areas, a series of vibratory and standard compaction tests was performed to estimate reference values for the maximum dry density and optimum water content of these materials, and a new methodology was proposed. The Odelouca dam is a zoned embankment dam, 76-m high, with clayey soil in the core and weathered schist with a significant fraction of oversized particles in the shells. This paper presents the results of the compaction control in addition to the dam performance during the construction and first filling phases as a validation of implemented construction procedures.
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References
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Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 140 • Issue 8 • August 2014
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Apr 12, 2013
Accepted: Feb 24, 2014
Published online: May 7, 2014
Published in print: Aug 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Oct 7, 2014
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