Optimum Design of Control Devices for Safe Seepage under Hydraulic Structures

Abstract

The research aimed at determining the optimal control device in order to decrease seepage under hydraulic structures. The finite-element method is used to analyze seepage through porous media below hydraulic structures with blanket, cut-off, or filter trench as seepage control devices. The effect of length and location of the control devices is investigated.
The formulated optimization model is applied to a hypothetical case study. The optimization problem is solved by the Lagrange-multiplier method to find the minimum costs of control devices with safe exit gradient and uplift pressure.
For a hydraulic structure with different control devices, the minimum total cost has been achieved when using a filter trench, while the maximum total cost was when a downstream cut-off is used.