THREE DIMENSIONAL SEEPAGE STUDY OF EMBANKMENT DAMS

Abstract

The study of flow of water through a porous medium is of vital importance in the design of Embankment Dams. There are a number of methods for the seepage analysis of Embankment Dams. However, most of the conventional methods are based on the two dimensional analysis,, which may provide reasonable results in case of relatively longer dams of uniform sections. In case of higher dams in narrow gorges, the assumption of two dimensional analysis may not hold good and this may result in certain degree of inaccuracy. In this study, an attempt has been made to analyse the seepage problem in embankment dams using the three dimensional approach and examine its efficacy. The finite element method has been used for the solution of the Laplace equation as applied for seepage analysis of Embankment Dams for which a suitable computer programme.has been developed...