Failure of the impervious element of rockfill dams due to overtopping and analysis of protections combining physical modelling and artificial intelligence.

After the study of the initial phase of the failure of rockfill dams carried out during the research project XPRES, this project focused on the impervious element and its modes of failure, in particular for a central core constructed with cohesive materials.

This project was performed by the Dam Safety Research Group (SERPA) in collaboration with the Center for Hydrographic Studies of CEDEX and the International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering (CIMNE). Physical models of rockfill dams were tested in the Laboratory of Hydraulics of the ETSI de Caminos, Canales y Puertos of the Technical University of Madrid while CEDEX focused on the detailed study of the cohesive materials characteristics. The numerical modelling was carried out by CIMNE.

Participants:

This R&D project has been funded by: