Objectives

Dams are getting taller than ever nowadays. This causes increasingly high stresses inside the dam, risking the breakage of the load bearing granular soils and consequently accelerating creep and pore clogging in the dam. This research theme explores the implications of grain breakage in extremely tall dams. 

One specific area of focus is on rockfill water dams. Accurate prediction of the settlement of rockfill dams is hindered by several uncertainties: (a) rockfills used in dam construction are often provided by local, gravelly deposits, rock quarries or excavations that can have a variety of geological origins and grain sizes; (b) the internal stress of high dams can be as high as several megapascals, lasting for its entire service life, during which the time-dependent deformation of rockfills becomes relevant. Both grain size effect and time effect in rockfill mechanics are rooted in the fracture of individual rockfill particles. In a recent study, we leveraged the continuum breakage mechanics theory, fracture mechanics, and subcritical crack growth theories in explaining and modeling this phenomenon. The performance of this model is then evaluated through a case study on the 233m Shuibuya concrete faced rockfill dam (CFRD) (Hubei, China), currently the tallest CFRD in the world. 

Another area of focus is on tailings dams. Tailing dams are constructed to impound the byproducts of mining operations and are often built using the coarser fraction of the tailings resulting from gravity separation processes. The high stresses anticipated at the bottom of tall tailings dams can lead to grain crushing, resulting in a reduction in the hydraulic conductivity and, ultimately, long-term performance issues if the water drains at a slower rate than required. Therefore, understanding the evolution of the hydromechanical behavior of the tailings is important for accurate evaluation of  the margin of safety in designing tall tailings dams. In collaborating with Stantec, we experimentally studied and modeled the evolution of tailings sand under various vertical stress levels.