Citation:
Abstract:
Problems related to seepage through earth dams constitute more than 40% of the sources of observed damages throughout the world. A particular attention is given to how to minimize the effects due to seepage by using an adequate means of drainage to ensure the hydraulic and mechanical stabilities of the dam. In the homogeneous earth dams, the filtering drainage blanket is used with dimensions and location in the backfill determined by some unreliable methods. In this work a simple chart is developed in order to effectively locate the filtering drainage blanket along with a graph giving its length. This graph was obtained after having carried out a computer simulation of a great number of earth dams in which the total height, the embankment slopes, and the material characteristics were varied. For each dam, the drain length is changed within the acceptable limits of the hydraulic stability and the landslide stability of the downstream side embankment which is calculated.