Overtopping Failure of a Homogeneous Earth-Fill Dam With Two Different Breach Sizes and Rough Downstream Conditions

Abstract

In this experimental study, sediment movement as a result of the failure of homogeneous earth-fill dams was investigated for rough downstream conditions compared with two different breach sizes. The dam body with 2.02 m width, 10 cm crest width, 60 cm height, and 32 degrees upstream and downstream slope was constructed with material with a median grain diameter of D-50 = 0.441 mm in a rectangular reinforced concrete channel with a width of 2 m. In the top middle of the dam body for the overtopping scenario, a 5 cm and 25 cm deep breach was triggered for experiments. The roughness downstream of the dam was created by placing 13 concrete cubes of 10x10x10 cm at regular intervals. The most obvious difference between the experimental results is that the sediment thickness propagated along the downstream is in the experiment where the depth of the breach is high.