Compaction Quality Control of Earth-Rock Dam Construction Using Real-Time Field Operation Data

Abstract

Compaction quality is critical to the stability and durability of earth-rock dams. The traditional quality inspection method relies primarily on testing randomly sampled spots of a job site, which may cause unreliable representation of the compaction quality of the entire work and lead to delays not only in performing the construction work but also in identifying and rectifying quality issues. In this paper, a quality-inspection process is developed that monitors compaction operations of earth-rock dam construction in real time and establishes a multiple regression model to predict compaction quality by using independent variable data obtained from the real-time quality-monitoring system. These independent variables include compaction operation parameters (i.e., compaction passes, roller velocity, vibration status, and pavement thickness) and earth-rock aggregate’s moisture content and gradation. Furthermore, by using the kriging interpolation procedure, the compactness at any point of a work area can be estimated, and the overall passing rate and spatial uniformity of compaction quality of the work area can be analyzed. The case study of the NZD Dam project in southwest China demonstrates the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method. This method enables the evaluation of compaction quality covering 100% of the work area, thus reducing the uncertainty of quality inspection associated with random spot tests, and facilitates timely feedback for quality control and improvement of earth-rock dam construction.