Abstract:
The water seeping through the body of the earth dam and through the foundation of the earth dam may prove harmful to the stability of the dam by causing softening and sloughing of the slopes due to development of pore pressures. It may also cause piping either through the body or through the foundation, and thus resulting in the failure of the dam.
For a homogeneous dam founded on a pervious foundation, seepage is expected to appear on the downstream face unless a cut off has been constructed through the pervious foundation, thus permitting the downstream portion of pervious foundation to act as a drain. Of course it is a simple matter to provide drainage so that the seepage does not reach the downstream face.
The problem of seepage through an earth dam resting on a pervious foundation has been analyzed in the thesis. In addition, a horizontal toe drain (under filter) was located at the downstream portion of the dam, and the performance of filter in earth dam has been studied. The purpose of the drain is to control seepage through the dam and reduce the exit gradient in the downstream of the earth dam....
