Quantity of Flow through a Typical Dam of Anisotropic Permeability

Abstract

In this research a computer program based on finite element method is used as a tool to study the effect of anisotropic permeability on the flow of water through an earth dam. The program has been checked with the typical solution of constant permeability of Dupuit solution, which is giving a good agreement with it. The program is used to compute the quantity of flow through a soil with an-isotropic permeability for different cases of upstream and downstream and length of flow. Relationships between normalized quantity of seepage through dam and downstream-upstream head ratio are presented for an-isotropic ratio K x /K y (20,10,5, 4,2,10,5,0.1,0.05). According to the obtained results, anisotropic per-meability plays an important role in calculating an accurate value of the quantity of seepage, and should be considered in design.