Investigating the possibility of hydraulic fracture in the core of earth dams with criteria based on critical pressure

One of the most important hazards that threaten earth dams is hydraulic failure. This phenomenon often occurs during the first flooding of the dam, when the water pressure rises suddenly. There are several ways to study hydraulic fracture and damage in a dam core. In this paper, the phenomenon of hydraulic fracture and seepage in Hajilerchai dam body in Tabriz has been investigated. For this purpose, first, using Geo-Studio, which is a program based on finite element, investigates the phenomenon of hydraulic failure in the two middle sections of the core and the upstream side of the dam core for two types of clay with low and high plasticity. The phenomenon has been identified. In modeling, layer-by-layer construction of the dam is also considered and the weight of the layers is taken into account in calculating stresses and deformations. As a result of these evaluations, high plasticity clay was selected as the selected soil and low plasticity clay was selected as the critical soil for use in the dam core. Also, Fukushima criteria and Ghanbari criteria had the most optimistic and conservative data, respectively, and the possibility of hydraulic failure in parts of the dam core was identified as possible.