Investigation of the Effect of Electrokinetic Process on the Seepage Reduction, Increase of Failure Time, and Decrease of Seepage Level in the Clay Core of Earth Dams

The present study investigated the related parameters to decrease the seepage through homogenous and heterogeneous earth dams by employing experimental models and solutions. Two heterogeneous earth dam models with vertical clay cores were considered to illustrate the effect of the electrokinetic application on the time failure factor. The seepage lines were measured along the longitudinal section from the heel to the toe using the observation wells by adjusting the electrodes of the electrokinetic application through the vertical clay core. The initial comparison expounds that adjusting the electrokinetic approach can decrease the level of the seepage line due to depleting water by considering horizontal drainage. Furthermore, the failure time was increased by 18 percent due to inputting the voltage in the clay content. The results indicated that the models with an electrokinetic approach were stabilized more than the ones. The hydrographs of the flow discharge were measured along the experimental tests to investigate the effect of electrokinetics with and without electrodes in 10 and 20 clay percent of the dam soil content. Results indicated that employing the electrokinetic application due to increasing clay content caused the effect of the electrokinetic was significantly increased and it caused the discharge flow reduced of 32 percent.