Mitigation through seepage reduction in dams

Abstract

There are many landslide and damages have occurred at dams due to the seepage. In addition, dam works often took inattention of the underneath soil parameters. This careless works resulted in failure of the dam structure as well as landslides. Based on this reason, a good research to be applied to dams is needed. Further, the potential landslides can be avoided. In this study an analysis of seepage analysis at the bottom of the dam is carried out. The landslide analysis is done by varying the parameter to build up the seepage. The case studies analyzed is taken at the seepage that occurred in Sei Wampu Dam located in North Sumatra. Soil data are obtained from the field tests which have been carried out in the previous work. The numerical simulation using the finite element method is gained to conduct the analysis. During the analyses, the variation of parameters obtained from the seepage calculation was recorded. The obtained seepage parameters that affect the stability of dams are then elaborated. The study results can be used for the mitigation efforts at the dams that have the potential for landslides.