Stress and Seepage Analysis of Earth Dams

Abstract

A finite element procedure is developed for stress, seepage and stability analysis of dams and earthbanks. The seepage analysis is based on a residual flow scheme involving saturated and unsaturated zones in which the original mesh remains invariant during transient flow and iterations. By using the same mesh for stress analysis including sequential embankment construction, it is possible to superimpose directly the effects of external and seepage forces. The soil behavior is modeled by using linear elastic, piecewise linear elastic and Drucker‐Prager models. The procedure is applied to a number of problems involving free surface seepage, stress analysis with stability, and combination of both. The predictions are compared with closed form solutions and field observations.