PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Most dams constructed worldwide are zoned earth dams with cores of different materials. However, selecting the proper core material in an earth dam will reduce seepage and increase safety. Most of the available information on dam cores was extracted from laboratory experiments. In this study, cores of different materials used in three selected zoned dams of almost the same height were assessed based on acquired field data and numerical simulation. The selected dams are in Iraq and named Haditha Dam (designed with a compound core of compacted dolomite and asphaltic diaphragm), Hemrin Dams (designed with a hard clay core) and Khasa Chai Dam (designed with a silty clay core). The total water head and water flux through the core of each dam were simulated using a two-dimensional SEEP/W model. For high and low water depths in the reservoir of Hemrin Dam, the water flux ratios were found to be 140 and 50 times greater than that of Haditha Dam. For low water depth in the reservoirs of Hemrin and Khasa Chai Dams, the flux ratio was 17. Compared with the core of the Hadith Dam, the flux through the core of the Khasa Chai Dam was found to be triple. For studied core samples, the variation in fluxes can be related to the effect of both hydraulic conductivity and geometry of the dam core. The hydraulic conductivity is affected by the core material, while the hydraulic gradient is affected by both the core material and geometry.

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