Granular Materials in Civil Engineering: Recent Advances in the Physics of Their Mechanical Behavior and Applications to Engineering Works - Multiscale Geomechanics: From Soil to Engineering Projects - page 71

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 3.18. Campos Novos rockfill dam in Brazil (height 202 m, volume 13 hm3 of rockfill):
a) general view at end of construction; b) view of upstream watertight concrete
facing damaged at impounding; c) detail of damages (failure of
reinforced concrete facing slab in compression)

These typical stress−strain curves give the order of magnitude of the strains
required to reach equilibrium within the rockfill embankment under service loads.
They also give the additional strains due to a given additional load. In the particular
example investigated here, for the deformations under service loads at the end of the
construction and for deformations under an additional load equal to 7% of the
service load, respectively, we obtain

Δε
Δε

Project

Project

Service

) ≈

3 and [3.43]

Add.load

) ≈

6

Prototype Prototype

Service Add.load

These orders of magnitude show that large strains shall be expected in our
extrapolated project compared to those in the prototype under service loads, and
even more so, in case of a given extra load.