Seepage investigation of embankment dams using numerical modelling of temperature field

Abstract

Leakage in embankment dam by applying seepage and thermal numerical simulations are studied in this paper. Unpredicted seepage in earthen dams is known as the main cause of damage in most cases. Determination of seepage flow quantity and prediction of dam leakage is very important. Temperature variation in dam body can be simulated to estimate the water velocity in soil layers. While moving through dam body, seepage flow carries all physical specifications of reservoir water, including its temperature. Mass and energy balance equations are discretized for modeling flow and temperature fields. The finite element method along with a mathematical model has been utilized to discretize and solve the governing equations in saturated and unsaturated zones. Shamil embankment dam located in South of Iran is considered as a case study to investigate the proposed model. To evaluate the condition of dam, different cases of soil materials with different permeability coefficients are analyzed and compared with measured data. Numerical results of seepage and temperature modeling are compared and discussed. The obtained results indicate that inspecting temperature data can magnify the effect of leakage more clearly than investigating piezometric head data.