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  • A Case History of A Major Construction Period Dam Failure

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    Artigo do Victor de Melo.

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    A Case History of a Major Construction Period Dam Failure

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    Artigo do Victor de Melo.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    29 vues16 pages

    A Case History of A Major Construction Period Dam Failure

    Transféré par

    alexandre1427
    Artigo do Victor de Melo.

    Droits d'auteur :

    © All Rights Reserved
    Téléchargez comme PDF ou lisez en ligne sur Scribd
    Signaler comme contenu inapproprié
    sur 16
    Anici et Alumni, EM Frof 1982, pp 63-78. vierar § Dr. ir. E+E, De Beer, Bruxelles, A case history of a major construction period dam failure by Victor F.B.DE MELLO 5 Consing Engineer Sto Pao, Breil INTRODUCTION In the recent past thee have been some very disconcerting falyres that. upon analysis end to ingieate the onset of an unfortunate cyte of mis Placed application of geotechnical knowledge Many a ease may be tecalled. and in most of them the postfaure analyses unearth a consis tent undertone that would alos! shame one sat apologies for a possible injustice of «posterior judgements. Trl. thous, the sequence of Wen- Uifable errors i bewildering even when sur founding an old. and well-recognized. problem “The impression arises tha the spread of geotech- sical analsisaynihess has reached ciees quite insensitive w te fondamenl behaviors snd the Conventional simplifications. Sow the wind. and feap the whitvind. Our preat mentor of the Carly days of sll engineering faced the humbling Completes of the unguantifid. problems, snd tade an effort to achieve conventional sluions that they well sognized as conventional, idea ed, and simplified thus. when applying 4 sin plication they estied wih them the full bene OF the widow of those that stat fom the Bewi- Aerment of realty and painfully reach the aby to dil so the ewences of simplicy required to solve the problem. A new generation of gco- technicians hs een taught the simplified sole tions oft without sufcint emphasis om hypothe: sis and recognition of closed-tycle conventional practices and 0 the rational simplicity of ratio falzations has suppressed all humility towards Natuce. Abs, wht is insuiiciently understood has een totemized. Then, time and again, sad denly one is shorked into the realization of how early Society will pay for old problems, of the ‘lnsical 1940's. erroneously handled ‘One such case 1s herem summarized with an tempi 10 pick oUt the fallacies that accompa tied am intended high level cognizance and ap- plication of soil mechanics "and carth dam eh- ieering ea ORIGINAL DESIGN AND SPECIFICATIONS : START OF CONSTRUCTION ‘The principal problem faced in the design of the dam shown in figure | was recognized ta be the need of a positive cutoff across the sandy alluvia. Two types of borrow pils were identified ‘and investigated in conventional laboratory tests fone was a dark-aray 10 black fMood-plain silly- lay: the other was an unsaturated terrace ted elayey-sand with gravel. Tt was recognized and conventional tianial tests duly confirmed. that the blackish silyclay had poor shear strength parameters. and thus ils use was confined, hoth fm the impervious blanket backfilling of the cut off trench and in a central core. For more appto- priate and guaranteed construction scheduling Between Mlood scasons the cutoff tench was s lated near the upstream toe of the dam. so that its construction could be developed in parallel with some of the embankment placement: it Was ‘reasonably forecast that such construction, with its groundwater lowering and rock-contact sur- face and grouting treatments at the bottom could face problems and delays. The upstream shell of the dam was designed to employ the compacted clayey sands and clayey-sand-gravels that had been estimated, and proven by conventional () ) All over the wild one encounters the problem of misplaced concep reparding sondardaton of boc tory tens. Standaration ie neces for cms! com ‘mination and ety sandardieations ad ch ait ‘espe the ponders limitations of dictates emited wen Unowiedge was barely bepinning 40 be gleaned under ‘ue laborer equipment sed moet compchenion oF Phenomena, One should emphatically eased agin the ‘ston (a world-wide bane) that standardized texts po post to reflect "vel properties and ekanor* rater Ba Inctly a covenant of nominal properties and ehanors for ‘ganized communication. Ta both the materals in gee tio laboratory routine pone very significant adultes tons field condoms, Inthe gravely sls the eed Fagin Ws no Q GRAIN SIZE pLasticiry oF Fines ta ceway. med cursus b= 18 (xe 2009 i nuacn eta som eww) Pa dea eiial desig and nde ae mati oa A CASE MTORY OFA MAJOR CONSTRUCTONFERIOD DAM FAILURE Iaboratory tess, to provide a highly resistant and amply impervious material Thus, an upstream partial cmbankment of the Fed gravelly material Would be raised on top of the impervious ele- ment of the trench. serve as upstream cotler- ‘dam against floods this impervious shell would ako tie the eutofT to the black clay impervious ore. The remaining features of the dam are rou fine and need no comment The borings in the alluvial sands revealed some fine gravel sires, principally wowards the bottom. There are geomorphological reasonings favouring acceptance of erratic gravel lenses and. principally. basal gravels. It must be recalled also that in many a washshoring there tend to be an accumulation of eoarser sizes atthe bottom of the boring because of sexregation due to wash- water circulating velocities. Thus the data from borings can be pessimistic. leading to. desirable conservatism, The fact is that visual inspection of the excavation Taces oF the wench and of the lunwatered alluvial plain constitute the incompa- ‘ably important data there were found to be no aravel lenses but only. interspersed fine. gravel ‘aes in a deposit of erfext filter sand. ‘The settlements of the dam on the sand foun- ation were computed to range between 20 and 440 em ja classic dishshape transversally. Appa- rently because of such dilferentil settlements eee ee Compuiction conditions. more plastic behavior (nd less cracking") is achieved by wetter com- paction, the bid documents suggested compaction in the range of optimum + 1.3%. The suggested specifications were to be fevised on the basis of field compaction behavior and test data, “The bid documents included some recognized ly questionable (fg. 2) geotechnical analyses. but, to an experienced earth dm engineer, visual ap predation of the cross section and analyses ‘Should suffice indicate overal acceptability of the plans. and easy design-as-you'go adjustment Consiruetion period analyses were stated to have used B coefficients (a questionable * constant” in lise) of 3% and. 10% (presumably a weighted average for both upstream materials, so very dis- tinct, an undesirably crude assumption and extre- rely low values for the black elay). Ra drown RDD (upstream) and full reservoir (RES) (downstream) slope stabilities employed flownets and. presumed effective stress parameters. The RES flownet scems far to0 pessimistically hypo- thesized im part itis recalled that the assump- tion of impervious boundary at the top of alli Vial riverbed is indeed applicable at two trans- verse planes, at the bottom of the abutments ‘where the dam resis on sound impervious bedrock : but the further assumption of am ideal. ly logged chimney filterain, so that the flow- fet would exit in the narrow downstream gravel ly shell could hardly find justification. The RDD flownet is quite unexplainable, Figure 2 sum: maviaes the flownets and nominal stability anal ss, run by computer. It was decided that for the Submerged slices it would be more practial 10 adopt 7=w=—0, ‘together ‘with using sub- merged init weights: possibly the tabulated use of 2210 unit weight of water was associated with such practice. Finally for so-alled long term ana- Ihses a frequently quoted obligation (however ab- Surd) to adopt c*—0 was used ; consequently, the Foutine computer analyses inevitably singled’ out as Teast stable the ertical circles tangent to the slopes. for slide volumes dV-0, The hypothesis {nd analysis constitute an exireme lower bound, ‘obtainable at sight by FS = tang ‘tan ‘On the unconservative side one must note the Incorporation of a most current misconception. spread under routine teaching and texts, That is the use of effective stress (c: @' coupled exclus vely with flownet porepressures, as i” under in- cremental stress-strain conditions that could lead 1o siding there would not be a Ju associated with compressibility HUMAN DISCONTINUITIES IN ENGINEERING ORGANIZATION ‘AND CONDUCT. ‘The owner organization has a considerable backlog of dams built and other dams under ‘construction : its technical staf? includes teachers ‘oF sol mechanics and earth dams. Design reports 10 ealide cour sae even when the consitte an ab- ‘elite continuum of praise and. in sock exclusion. the ‘Mgmnt hpteres that can be imposed on the clayey Fines and on some erasable ceame fractions he sev- ing done aller drying and. pulering. In clayey Matera even ial esting guard pat ach Hye the fundamental discrepancy is that the Test ia question ‘emould and psy he sll and ater compat ft soni in small rgd moulds theteby depuis. on eth ‘al the wellecopaized tad emphesnedieporiace Of Imcrosratare so geotechnical bee. ©) The author us repeatedly mentioned. e.g. 3 Rankine Lecture, Geotechniue. Me Mell. 977) that mos strpriningly. dsp settlements of » couple of fetes ve been accepted unquestioned hen they lect the upper part of adam suppried on im lower pr. ‘ile tir soulement o's few decimeter ave een onjced 1 cause concen when they are mnie st ‘ive to foundation: Moreover x wil he dicted fr thermo distinction se made etseen longitudinal and Manwere diflerental scents and each, oe between fpen crsonetacking and ght shee plane dipacement loathe fallacious astcatione between plate tea: ‘oe and plasty iuices and wet compaction wl al Be Tecles de Melo, 196} beats of dretbearng onthe ce hy LENO OF coNsTRUCTION (Roar) MATERIAL, & 1 e | ae aa a iw? 2a ae ee See a eee a rs) ni | oe f22 hare Sees inka [oe sm a] rina sen, baie srenah partes dpe flown end aiyonals Fro ‘and bid documents were accepted, and there was 44 delay of about 3 years before bidding. and nother year before start of construction, “Tenders were also put out for field inspection and design-a-you-go engineering. The designers Wwere among the bidders, but lest As inspection Started questions were raised by the Inspectors, but the Designer understandably declined to comment, A solution for the desirable tie-in of the design and construction phases was sought by engaging the individual consulting services of frotechnical engineer who had had « key partici- pation in the design but had since left the firm land established himself as an individual consul- tant and parttime profesor. The Inspectors fur- thee engaged an international specialist comsule {ant to assist them in contractual obligations * 0 offer specialized. services of design revisions if and when the optimization of the project would Suggest or requite them". Administrauvely there ‘were significant discontinuities in the profesional attbutions and chain of responsibiities. These fand other administrative problems may well be Singled out as the most persistent cause of the Tailutes faced. This quite astounding. firstly, that Owners do ‘ot recognize that when contracting the services of a company (cither in series or in parallel), 10 “optimize design-as-you-go. revisions” of the design of a competitor company, they inexorably invite revisions out of jealousy and dispute rather than out of need or zeal: itis in animal and Fhuman nature. Engineering design isan at, qui subjective, and not a rightorewrong objective Science. Secondly. when the Owner's technical Staff perceives that the “ specialists” are dedica- ted 10 picking bones. iti tragic that no benefit be sought from the dispute: the old motto * di requires the strongly deciding to cull the benefits from the dispute ‘One must emphasize that the construction Scheduling was necessarily speedy and tight, and {o a contracior. fortunately. the rules of the game fate Le ol est mort. Vive le ro.” SIGNIFICANT DESIGN REVISION SUGGESTED, DOCUMENTED. "AND DISCLAIMED While the execution of the eutolT trench was pushing ahead. the international specialist con- Sullant was firsily engaged by correspondence (0 fevise instrumentation @) plans, and to revise the “flow-nct analysis of the as designed section ™ The unexplained boundary, conditions of the design Nlownets. and thei further flings. doubt- less invited altack. There resulted a special con sulting visit by the imternational specialist, and a significant revision of the design section was sug- ” gested essentially along line finally adopted as Shown in iguee 3 “The reasons for the need to revise the design section were stated 10 be a cause of major con- Sern "and ate summarized as follows, Firstly it was questioned wy the cutoff trench was nol, as is usually the practice. nearer the center of the dam, under the impervious core zone (*), Secondly. by visual examination and by thtee grainsize tests it was concluded that the aravel contents of the gravelly clayey-sand were {o0 high, so that the Zone Tl material might not be impervious C) to constitute an acceptable con- nection between the black clay cutofl and. core, ‘Thirdly. here were repeated indications of con- cern regarding differential setlements and erack- ‘ng, and high seepage gradients *) such as to make it good that the cote material be a plastic (CL t@ CH) soil, with placement wet of opti- mum). (€) One might well ect on the tony of how eften the mest subjective and most fequety misplaced and srastetul engineering eff (ok. Rankine Lecture de Met To. 977) waed Sea teach for donign rovisons. “Thereby one as all he original Fainas of saromen- tation dens the further bane of delayed ordering and Delite stallion, )Altough tpeometric analy of most dams woukd Indeed have placed the culo ap stated. shouldbe feel that wth esa othe Teton dam re both the Special Panes report and the Bares of Reclmaton’s ‘clucism rcoppined the cal wrench ferential tlement problem. arching. and. eraching. a a iain ing sk of re on st ills 1c bived on Indies index testing ute det ess sta whem constr: tom's going” Gravelly mater have ldo srpies of ‘er Tow permeates principally basse the comma Ul shepesolthe goatee cures (ond gina) baw net been comidered Aga “Teton dum fare the Permeability fet rvesled that what was meant to be a rnvel drain furnished results most in the = prctialy Impervious tangs (for taste, [eer and Zeindler, 1987p (7 Reza allowable senate wales he prof Som etme fave mt forgotten that seepage sess ‘af vectorial an that direction (compressive veal) St prme mteren (repping ee) Moreover, Wis genera |y Seceped that even high pradients ould not arouse concern Hf there sa fod filter backup Finally ead ‘Sf roughly 3 scrostblnket or cut trench would be Sovsidered gute low in comparhon sith sovenional desig (6) The increasingly heavier earthmoving and compac- tion cqipment have made i gute incomplete ate platy indices with plastic dlermabiity of ate Sompieted matenals le Mell 1973, Tosh 1981) CH ‘materials wel compacted tend tobe "dry" ad rile then compacted "wet steme laminations af onerom pocion tend 1 ese TRepading spciications of sllowable range of compas: Sng ote the rice of” aig een wie Sept = +18) ba been the sure of very repeated ‘wouble sins materials ase over he wold have ranged In = orang I i I “eenon } coururen riowner lrunuieneo or twrenmarionat —cbasu-ranr € necnnceeesen Qe cmomeron de or enon. ene evriesy mace c.Ar or Getoe Rectied scion commended and dxcsonestation ‘CASE HSTORY OFA MAJOR CONSTRUCTION PERIOD OAM FALURE ‘Thus, two alternate schemes were proposed 19 rectify the desian shoricomings discussed. above However, before cither scheme was adopted it was recommended that upstream stability analy- ses he made for both schemes for steady state and draydown conditions (four analyses), The {questionable analyses and borderline safety fuc- tors of the design documents were the reason for the requirement. A buttress of the upstream ioe ‘of Zone TA material was recommended to crease the path percolation and to strenghten the toe stability because of ‘the replacement of Zone IA clayey sand-sravel sols with more plas: tie lack clay soils (HA), Although the recliffed desien, to provide a continuous connection of fa plastic

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