EFFECTS OF SOIL PROPERTIES ON TIME OF SATURATION IN EARTH DAMS

Abstract

In the present work a numerical analysis of the time required for saturation of an earth dam is investigated using variably saturated flow model. The sensitivity analysis to the soil properties such as hydraulic conductivity, soil retention parameters (n and ), drainable porosity and initial pressure head are studied for different degree of hydraulic anisotropy. The progress of saturation is observed and inflow and outflow rates are computed for assigned times and then employed to indicate the time required for saturation (TS) of earth dam. The results are compared with the available analytical solution which ignored most of the soil properties. The results for different values of degree of hydraulic anisotropy indicate that the hydraulic conductivity, soil retention parameters, drainable porosity and initial pressure head have significant effect on TS. On the other hand, the results indicate that TS increases considerably with an increase in the degree of hydraulic anisotropy