Construction Simulation for a Core Rockfill Dam Based on Optimal Construction Stages and Zones: Case Study

Abstract

Construction simulation is an effective means to describe the dam filling process of a core rockfill dam. However, present research studies adopt a simplified method to analyze the placement of a rockfill subsystem because of various uncertain working constraints and diverse flow shop construction processes, which include preparing, discharging, paving, compacting, and checking. In addition, because the time and cost minimization and equilibrium of the filling intensity are important matters in the design of core rockfill dam construction stages and zones, full consideration of these matters is required during the construction process. In this work, a construction simulation model for a rockfill dam based on flow shop construction is presented. The model can provide different reasonable construction schemes of each filling layer. In addition, to obtain an optimal plan for the construction stages and zones, entropy weight method and the improved genetic algorithm (GA) are used to address the time-cost trade-off problem and to minimize to disequilibrium degree of filling intensity simultaneously. A core rockfill dam in southwest China is taken as a case study. The result demonstrates that the plan obtained by this approach can not only guarantee a low disequilibrium degree of filling intensity (5.66) but also shorten the construction period with a reasonable mechanical investment plan. The comparison between the optimal plan and the plan made in accordance with experience, of which the disequilibrium degree of the filling intensity is 7.96, demonstrates the superiority of the optimal plan and the feasibility of the proposed approach.