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Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake Loading-Case of Lower San Fernando

Dam

Chapter · March 2018

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-63709-9_63

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 Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake
Loading-Case of Lower San Fernando Dam

Pinar Sezin Ozturk Kardogan(&), Murat Pinarlik, Nihat Sinan Isık,

and Seyhan Firat

Faculty of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, Gazi University,

Ankara, Turkey
{sezinozturk,muratpinarlik,nihatsinan,sfirat}
@gazi.edu.tr

Abstract. Soil liquefaction is seen where the water table is high and soil is
cohesionless. Especially, it occurs when drainage is not possible or limited.
Consequently effective stress decreases as result of increasing pore pressure
during shearing. The significant majority of damage of buildings, roads, bridges
and dams in earthquakes are due to soil liquefaction. Recently, the importance of
soil behavior during the earthquakes has begun to be discussed. In particular,
soil liquefaction can cause serious damages to earth—rockfill dams constructed
in earthquake prone areas. In 1994-USA, 105 dams were affected within a
75 km radius from center of the Northridge earthquake of 6.7 magnitude. Some
of these dams are earthfill and others are rockfill and not all of these dams were
in danger of collapse. However, settlement cracks and/or slope movements have
been observed. Others did not affected. Besides, many of these dams experi-
enced the San Fernando Earthquake which has a magnitude of 6.5 occurred in
the same area. In 1918, the Lower San Fernando Dam having a height of 42 m
which was built using “hydraulic fill” technique was heavily damaged. In this
study, Lower San Fernando Dam and earthquake loading is modelled using a
finite difference program FLAC which contains Finn liquefaction model. At the
end of the analysis, damage to the dam section, plastic shear deformations,
distribution of pore pressure and deformations are compared with the real case.

Keywords: Liquefaction
San Fernando Dam
Earthquake
Dam failure

1 Introduction

Many dams constructed for various purposes such as irrigation, energy production,
flood control, recreation and earth structures such as highway embankments have been
located in earthquake-prone areas. There are a significant number of seismic incidents
during which these structures are subjected to partial or total damage [1]. Some older
earthfill dams, known as hydraulic-fill dams, were constructed by using water for
transporting embankment material to its final position in the dam [2].

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018

S. Fırat et al. (eds.), Proceedings of 3rd International Sustainable Buildings
Symposium (ISBS 2017), Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 6,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63709-9_63
 Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake Loading-Case … 839

Several important problems are natural for these structures. Perhaps most signifi-
cant, but unrecognized at the time most hydraulic-fill dams were built, is that this type
of construction leaves a relatively loose soil structure that is subject to liquefaction
during an earthquake and failure of the dam can result [2].
The term “liquefaction” describes a phenomenon in which a cohesionless soil loses
strength during an earthquake and acquires a degree of mobility sufficient to permit
movements ranging from several feet to several thousand feet [3]. Liquefaction occurs
when soil is on the dry side of critical states, near zero effective stress, and in the
presence of high hydraulic gradients [4]. Liquefaction phenomenon causes some fail-
ures during the earthquake such as bridges, superstructures, dams, ports, wharf and
marine and water tank etc.… In the past earthquakes, some dams effected negatively
because of liquefaction such as Sheffield Dam, Mochikoshi Dam, Chang Dam, Fate-
hgadh Dam and The Lower San Fernando Dam.
Sheffield Dam was failed during the Santa Barbara Earthquake, 1925 (Fig. 1).
Fatehgadh Dam, showed longitudinal cracks which may indirectly relate to liquefaction
of foundation soils in the Bhuj Earthquake, 2001 [5]. Chang Dam underwent almost a
complete collapse because of liquefaction of shallow foundation soils [6].

Fig. 1. Sheffield Dams failure [7]

The best examples here are the Mochikoshi Dam in Japan which failed during the
1978 Izu-Ohshim-Kinkai earthquake due to liquefaction induced flow slides resulting
in release of the tailings as shown in Fig. 2 [8].
840 P. S. O. Kardogan et al.

Fig. 2. Plan of Mochikochi tailings dams [9]

The other dam failure was San Fernando Dam. There was a significant earthquake
in Southern California in 1971, which is referred to as the San Fernando earthquake.
The earthquake occurred on February 9, 1971 at 6:00 a.m. local time and had a 6.6
Richter magnitude.
The Lower San Fernando Dam in Southern California developed a major slide in
the upstream slope and crest as a result of the 1971 San Fernando earthquake [10]. The
field investigation showed that the slide occurred due to liquefaction of a zone of
hydraulic sand fill near the base of the upstream shell, in Fig. 3 [11].

Fig. 3. Cross section through Lower San Fernando Dam showing: a conditions after 1971
earthquake, b schematic reconstruction of failed cross section [10]
 Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake Loading-Case … 841

The San Fernando dam is a very important case for geotechnical earthquake and
earthquake engineering. So, there are a lot of research and publications about it. Data
from accelerometers located on the abutment and on the crest of the embankment
indicated peak accelerations of about 0.55 and 0.5 g, respectively, and an analysis of
the acceleration record on the dam crest indicated that the slide occurred about 20–30 s
after the earthquake shaking had stopped [12].
In this study, Lower San Fernando Dam was analyzed using FLAC to determine
distribution of plastic shear deformations, excess pore pressures and deformations.
Results of numerical simulations were compared with the case.

2 The Structural Properties of the San Fernando Dam

The geometry and soil layers of the Lower Dam was idealized as shown in Fig. 4. The
dam height is 44 m with 2.5h:1v side slopes. The downstream side has a berm with a
side slope of 4h:1v. The dam was constructed directly on the stream-bed alluvium,
which is about 5 m thick [13].

Fig. 4. Numerical analysis model of the Lower San Fernando dam

The dam was constructed primarily by hydraulic fill placement. The fill was
loosened in the borrow area by hydraulic jets of water and then transported to the site
by means of wooden sluice troughs [12]. The dam was constructed primarily by
hydraulic fill placement. The fill was loosened in the borrow area by hydraulic jets of
water and then transported to the site by means of wooden sluice troughs [12]. Dykes
of dry fill were placed at the outer edges of the dam to contain the slurry. The material
in these outer dykes was likely more dense and competent than the slurry fill in general,
and this is the reason for the outer shell in the cross-section in Fig. 5. The hydraulic fill
placement was used to construct approximately the lower two-thirds of dam. The
construction was completed by placing rolled fill on top of the lower hydraulic fill. The
upper rolled fill apparently had minimal compaction [12]. Sometime later a berm was
constructed on the downstream side. A granular layer was placed between the original
dam and the berm. The dam was constructed by “hydraulic filling,” which involves
mixing the fill soil with a large amount of water, transporting it to the dam site by
pipeline, depositing the soil and water on the embankment in stages, and allowing the
excess water to drain away [14].
842 P. S. O. Kardogan et al.

Fig. 5. The San Fernando dams a reservoirs

The dam is located in the lower left corner of this areal view. About 80,000 people
living in the area downstream were threatened by the failure of the embankment and the
very real possibility that the dam would fail completely, inundating the area by a
catastrophic flood wave. Disaster was narrowly averted by drawing down the reservoir
before the remaining remnant of the crest gave way [14].

3 Numerical Analysis of the San Fernando Dam

In this study dynamic numerical simulations of the dam were performed using
FLAC2D [15] which is an explicit finite difference program. To model cyclic response
of the non-liquefiable soils elastic—perfectly plastic constitutive model with Mohr
Coulomb failure criteria was used. On the contrary Finn Model is used for liquefiable
soils.

3.1 Soil Parameters

Generally, the streambed alluvium, outer shell, top rolled fill, and downstream berm are
treated as somewhat more competent as the hydraulic fill [13].
In the FLAC2D analysis, soil properties were used that showed Table 1 and region
of the soil Fig. 6. Average unit weight is 19 kN/m3.
 Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake Loading-Case … 843

Table 1. Soil properties for using FLAC2D analysis

Bulk modulus (kN/m2) Shear modulus (kN/m2) Cohesion Friction angle
6.667  104 3.077  104 5 38
25,000 11,538 5 30
17,500 8077 5 27
17,500 8077 5 27
17,500 8077 40 8
50,000 23,077 30 40
6.667  104 3.077  104 5 38
6.667  104 3.077  104 5 38

Fig. 6. Region of the soil properties

4 The Liquefaction Analysis of the San Fernando Dam

It is now generally recognized that the basic cause of liquefaction of saturated cohe-
sionless soils during earthquakes is the build-up of excess hydrostatic pressures due to
the application of cyclic shear stresses induced by the ground motions [11]. In this
study, Finn model is used for the liquefaction model, Table 2 and Fig. 7. By using this
model, permanent volumetric unit deformations can be calculated to find a pore water
pressure during the dynamic analysis. In addition to, void ratio can be determined as a
function of the volumetric unit deformation and other parameters.

Table 2. Finn Model for liquefaction region area for FLAC2D model soil
Model Density Bulk Shear Cohesion Friction Dilation Region
soil layer modulus modulus angle angle number
(kN/m2) (kN/m2)
Finn 2 17,500 8077 1 27 0 125-20
model
Finn 2 17,500 8077 1 27 0 94-21
model
844 P. S. O. Kardogan et al.

Fig. 7. The constitutive models in FLAC2D model for liquefaction

5 Earthquake Records

San Fernando Earthquake was occurred in the Southern California on February 9, 1971
and its moment magnitude was 6.6. In Fig. 8, San Fernando Earthquake’s acceleration-
time history is shown which was used in the FLAC2D analysis.

Fig. 8. San Fernando earthquake acceleration-time history

6 Results

For the numerical simulation staged analyses were performed. In the first stage, in situ
stress distribution jest before filling of the dam was calculated. After this initial stage a
seepage analysis was performed for the determination of steady state pore pressure
 Behavior of Dams Under Earthquake Loading-Case … 845

distribution. This stage was fallowed with a mechanical calculation step to determine
mechanical response of the dam for changing pore pressures—effective stresses. Final
stage was the dynamic simulation in time domain using San Fernando Earthquake
acceleration record.
According to the numerical simulation results up stream side of the dam is failed.
Figure 9 presents the displacement vectors at the end of earthquake shaking at the
upstream side. Figure 9 clearly shows that the upstream side is unstable. Figure 10
shows the distribution of plastic points at the end of the dynamic analysis stage.

Fig. 9. The displacement vectors at the end of earthquake shaking at the upstream side

Fig. 10. The distribution of plastic points at the end of the dynamic analysis stage

In Fig. 10 light colored points show elements that are in shear failure. In Fig. 11
distribution of pore pressure at the end of earthquake loading is given. As it is clear
from Fig. 11 pore pressures increased from static values especially at the upstream toe
of the dam. It can be stated that the increase of pore pressures led to failure of the
upstream side of the San Fernando Dam. FLAC2D with Finn liquefaction constitutive
model successfully predicted the failure of the Lower San Fernando Dam.
846 P. S. O. Kardogan et al.

Fig. 11. Distribution of pore pressure at the end of earthquake loading

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