Internal Erosion and Dam Stability : Analysis of the internal erosion effects on stability of an embankment dam

Abstract: Embankment dams encounter several problems in terms of dam safety. One of those problems is called internal erosion. This phenomenon is induced by the movement of fine particles within the dam due to seepage forces. If the dam is not able to self-heal, the eroded zones will increase which will eventually cause the dam to fail. Thus standards have been created by Svensk Energi and summarized in the Swedish dam safety guideline RIDAS 2012. These standards are used as a basic in the risk analysis of existing dams and provide guidelines for proper design of future dams.A dam in Sweden has presented recurring incidents related to internal erosion within the core. The impact of this internal erosion is analysed in this thesis with the use of Finite Element Method/Analysis (FEM/A). FEA models simulate the in situ stresses in the dam and calculate the strength. It also enables the analysis of changing hydraulic conductivity and its effect on the overall effective strength due to changing pore pressure and seepage forces. The analysis using numerical methods was performed in the program PLAXIS2D and SEEP/W while limit equilibrium analysis was done in SLOPE/W.The calculation in PLAXIS2D was performed by using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model. The in situ stresses are initially calculated using gravity loading since this is the preferred method on an uneven terrain instead of a K0-calculation. Then, through a set of phases in the program, zones where erosion is assumed to have occurred are changed. These zones have a higher permeability and will thus affect the pore pressures in the dam following Darcy’s law with permeability through a set medium.The increased permeability is set to follow an increased void ratio due to loss of fine material in the core. How this increase of void ratio affects the permeability is investigated through using Ren et al’s (2016) proposed equation for calculating permeability with a set void ratio. Their equation, apart from the usually used Kozeny-Carman equation, considers both effective and ineffective void ratio where the ineffective void ratios refers to the volume of pores that is immobile when flow is considered.The increased flow in the eroded zones of the core did not seem to impact the strength of the dam in much regard. The phreatic surface and thus the pore pressure did not change enough to influence the overall effective strength of the dam. It raises the question if the stability of an earth-rock fill dam will be affected due to increased pore pressure at all due to its draining properties and if it would rather fail due to increased seepage forces.