Evaluating Seismic Stability of Embankment Dams - Multiscale Geomechanics: From Soil to Engineering Projects - page 370

- the curve giving the liquefaction potential.

The latter is taken from [SEE 73]. The residual strength was measured by Castro
[CAS 89]. All the parameter values used in this study are assembled in Table 10.4.

Embankment Lower Upper

Material

e max

0.93 1.15 1.15 0.93 1 0.93 1.15 0.93 1

upstream:
0.663 and
downstream:
0.652

e in situ

0.571 0.76 0.76 0.29 0.571 0.76 0.652 0.5

e min

0.42 0.51 0.51 0.42 0.29 0.42 0.51 0.42 0.29

c (KPa) 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

φ crit ( o )

34 34 34 34 35 34 34 34 35

upstream:
26 and
downstream:
33

Su C (kPa) 104 33 33 103 104 33 33 103

G 1 (MPa) 381 382 360 298 727 360 418 208 761

K 1 (MPa)

781 924 1,010 1,041 1,700 968 1,109 524 1,478

C c

0.154 0.194 0.194 0.154 0.215 0.154 0.194 0.154 0.215

r 2.45 2.4 2.4 2.3 2.45 2.45 2.4 2.3 2.45

α 4 5.8 5.8 8 1.8 5.5 5.5 13 2

C 1

0.07 0.09 0.09 0.024 0.026 0.04 0.09 0.012 0.05

C 2 20 41 41 43 17 31 36 47 21

Table 10.4. Material parameters for the modeling of San Fernando embankment dams

10.6.7.6. Justification of the behavior of the lower dam during the 1952 earthquake

The construction of the San Fernando lower dam started in 1912; the upper dam
was built afterwards, in 1919. The “semi-hydraulic fill” technique was applied in
order to build the upper dam, which appears to be an improvement over the classical
hydraulic fill technique. In order to validate the constitutive model used in this
study, and to ascertain that the chosen parameter values do not correspond to a
pessimistic misrepresentation of the soil resistance leading to early failure, we have