Reliability-based design for earth-fill dams against severe natural disaster events

The maintenance of geotechnical structures, such as earth-fill dams, is required as a countermeasure against severe natural disasters, particularly earthquakes and heavy rains. The reliability-based analysis introduced here is in response to the recent demand for low-cost improvements.First, a statistical model of N values was determined from Swedish weight sounding (SWS) tests to present the spatial variability of the soil strength. Then, a reliability-based analysis of embankments was conducted by considering the variability of the internal friction angle derived from N value, and the seismic hazard for the Nankai Trough. The next step was to evaluate the probability of the overflow of earth-fills during heavy rains. The rainfall intensity was considered as a probabilistic parameter, and the various rainfall patterns were tested by the proposed method. Finally, the total risk due to both earthquakes and heavy rains was evaluated for an earth-fill site. As a result, the possibility for the practical use of the proposed method in making plans for the maintenance of deteriorated earth-fill dams was verified.

This fulltext is available in Apr. 2023

© 2020 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This is the accepted manuscript version. The formal published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2020.09.004.