Abstract: Overtopping is known as one the most important reasons for the failure of earth dams. In some cases, it has resulted in heavy damages and losses. Therefore, enhancing the safety of earth dams against overtopping has received much attention in the past four decades. In this paper, at first, the overtopping phenomena and its destructive consequences will be introduced. Then, overtopping failure mechanism of embankments will be described. Finally, different types of protection systems for stabilization of earth dams against overtopping will be presented. These include timber cribs, riprap and gabions, reinforced earth, roller compacted concrete, and the precast concrete blocks.
Abstract: Many embankment dams have suffered failures during
earthquakes due to the increase of pore water pressure under seismic
loading. After analyzing of the behavior of embankment dams under
severe earthquakes, major advances have been attained in the
understanding of the seismic action on dams. The present study concerns numerical analysis of the seismic
response of earth dams. The procedure uses a nonlinear stress-strain
relation incorporated into the code FLAC2D based on the finite
difference method. This analysis provides the variation of the pore
water pressure and horizontal displacement.