A Design Chart for Positioning a

Drainage Blanket in an Earth Dam

Belkacem Messaid, MS
Magister hydraulics, Teacher/researcher,
University of Batna, Algeria,
belmessaid@yahoo.fr

Abderrahmane Boudoukha, PhD

hydraulics, Teacher/researcher,
University of Batna, Algeria,
boudoukha_abderrahmane@yahoo.fr

TECHNICAL NOTE

ABSTRACT
Problems related to seepage through earth dams constitute more than 40% of the sources of
observed damages throughout the world. A particular attention is given to how to minimize
the effects due to seepage by using an adequate means of drainage to ensure the hydraulic and
mechanical stabilities of the dam. In the homogeneous earth dams, the filtering drainage
blanket is used with dimensions and location in the backfill determined by some unreliable
methods. In this work a simple chart is developed in order to effectively locate the filtering
drainage blanket along with a graph giving its length. This graph was obtained after having
carried out a computer simulation of a great number of earth dams in which the total height,
the embankment slopes, and the material characteristics were varied. For each dam, the drain
length is changed within the acceptable limits of the hydraulic stability and the landslide
stability of the downstream side embankment which is calculated.
KEYWORDS: Earth dam; Drain blanket; infiltrations; stability; piping; phreatic-line.

INTRODUCTION
The length of the filtering drainage blanket in a homogeneous earth dam is taken in the range (¼,
⅓) (Post and Londe, 1953) (Groupe, 1985) of the surface of the dam. The present study is
devoted to the exact determination of this length. To this end, first, we have undertaken an
investigation to identify the elements which have direct or indirect links with the drain blanket
such as the total height of the dam, the upstream and downstream slopes of the embankment, the
types of the materials and the extreme upstream and downstream positions of the filtering
drainage blanket.
The second step is concerned with the verification of the mechanical stability of the earth dam. A
computer program has been developed which can be used for dams whose height varies from 1.0
to 400 meters. For each dam we vary the slope from 2 to 7, with a variable position of the drain
blanket within a range limited by two extreme upstream and downstream positions.
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The computational results for all the dams are given in tables and, to facilitate their use, they are
presented graphically.

The Role of a Filtering Drainage Blanket

The role of a drain blanket in a homogeneous earth dam is critically important for the working of
the structure and also for its mechanical and hydraulic stability (Shneebeli, 1978)
(Bardet, 1997)(Commission,1994).
The drain:
-Lowers the line of saturation to avoid resurgence on the downstream slope.
 Keeps a large part of non-saturated backfill which enhances the mechanical stability of
the structure by avoiding the diminution of the internal friction angle.
 Minimizes the flux losses through the body of the dam.
 Collects and evacuates the seepage water in the dam and its foundation.

Method of Determination of the Saturation Line

The saturation line is approximately in the shape of a parabola as do all other flow lines, but its
theoretical point of intersection with the upstream face does not coincide with the practical point
of intersection. To determine the value of the shift between the two points we can use two
methods:
The first one is the parabola method of Kozeny (Post and Londe, 1953) (Groupe, 1985) where the
distance between the intersection points of the practical and theoretical is taken as 30% of the
horizontal projection of the wet part of the upstream face.
The second is the method of changing the upstream embankment in a vertical face by keeping the
same value of pressure drop for the two cases (Durand, 1999) (Kaltzner, 1997). Thus the distance
between the two points, theoretical and practical, is given by the expression:

m1
λH1 = H2 (1)
2m1  1
Where
 λ H1 is the distance between the two intersection points
 H1 is the height of the normal level of the reservoir
 m1 is the slope of the upstream embankment

Once we have computed this distance using the two methods for different dam heights and
different slopes of the upstream embankment and with a reference to the exact results obtained
with the method of electrical analogy, we have decided to use the method of changing the
upstream embankment since it gives results closest to reality.

METHOD OF DETERMINATION OF STABILITY

Hydraulic Stability
When water seeps through the ground, it undergoes actions resulting from the presence of liquids
moving or not moving on its interstices. The study of this problem is facilitated by the possibility
 Vol. 13, Bund. D 3

of separating the various constraints which apply to each phase where three forces can act (Hillel,
1984) (Groupe, 1985) (Frênette, 1977):
 gravity
 force of the hydrostatic uplift pressure
 pressure force of the flow

The resultant of these three forces gives a final force which acts on the solid phase. The intensity
of this force is given by the algebraic sum of the intensities of the three forces represented by the
hydraulic gradient (gradH), this latter while increasing can result in the force being null and the
solid phase will be as subtracted from the action of gravity which is called the boiling
phenomenon. If the hydraulic gradient continues to increase, the solid granular will uplift and be
entrained by the flow which is called the Reynard phenomenon.
In the techniques of constructing earth dams it is normal to define a critical hydraulic gradient
(Jouravlev, 1979) depending on the materials used from which the Reynard phenomenon is
initiated.
Next in the present work we have used the results from the research of Tchougaév (Kaltzner,
1997) who has fixed the admissible values for the hydraulic gradient for different types of earth
dams and for each desired height.

Mechanical Stability
The essential problem encountered in the construction of backfill with compacted earth is the one
linked to their stability against slipping. The mechanism which leads to the fracture of the
embankment has been the subject of simplified approaches but is sufficient to determine the
safety factors which can give indications concerning the stability of the embankments. In this
study we have adopted the simplified method of Bishop (Costet and Sanglerat, 1981) (Kaltzner,
1997) which we judge as acceptable for earth dams.
The determination of the position of center of the critical circle can be done with the method of
FEEDEV (Jouravlev, 1979). This method suggests placing the center of the circle inside a
contour limited on one side by two straight lines, where one is a vertical line and the other forms
an 85° angle with the downstream embankment and both passing through the midpoint of the
same embankment. On the other side, it is limited by two arcs with the same center situated at the
intersection point of the two lines and radii given in terms of the total height of the dam.

Figure 1: Earth dam with line of saturation—notation used

HEIGHT OF THE DAM

To establish a plan for the computer runs, we have fixed the dimensions of the dam as follows:
 Vol. 13, Bund. D 4

Height of the dam H—The height of the dam varies from 1 to 400 meters with a computation step
of 1 meter.

Height of the normal level

By considering a divestment constant (Degoutte, 1997) (Albergel et al, 2004) height for all the
heights of the dam of h=1.5 meters and a freeboard, R, (Bonelli et al, 2005) in terms of the height
of the waves varying along the height of the dam (H) as follows:
H≤100m R=2.50m
H>100m R=5.50m
which yields the normal height of the dam as
H1 = H  (h + R) (2)

Thickness of crest, b
It is taken as varying with the total height of the dam (Bonelli, 2001) and (Marche et al, 1995) :
b = 9.00 m if H≤100 m
b = 14.00 m if 100< H<200 m
b = 9.00 m if H≥200 m (3)

Slopes of the embankment

By analyzing the different techniques for the construction of the earth dams and particularly the
recommendations of Terzaghi (Jouravlev, 1979), we proposed to vary the downstream slope (m2)
in the range 2 to 7 [2; 3; 4 5; 6; 7].

The value of the upstream slope (m1) is deduced using the relation:
m1= m2 + 1 (4)

Filtering drainage blanket

The thickness of the drain blanket is taken equal to 2 meters for all the dams considered in the
computations (Shneebeli, 1978).
The position of the filtering drainage blanket will be variable but stays in the interior of the
efficient zone delimited by the two following extreme positions:
 Downstream extreme position where the saturation line is tangent to the downstream
face.
 Upstream extreme position where the hydraulic slope is admissible (Jouravlev,
1979).
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Figure 2: Design chart for the position and length of drainage blanket

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

We have obtained results giving the slipping stability coefficient (Kaltzner, 1997) for
each considered dam in terms of the positions of the internal blanket drain. A study of
the results allowed us to retain the case where the stability coefficient is allowable and
to facilitate their interpretation, we have presented them in graphical form giving
directly the position of the internal drain blanket in terms of the height of the dam and
its downstream slope.

CONCLUSION
The determination of the length of the filtering drainage blanket by using the graph is of great
simplicity since we have the possibility to fix it exactly and rapidly for each height and slope of
the dam.
Hence, we can make use of an efficient tool to fix this length by taking into account all the factors
which have direct or indirect influence on the stability of the dam; the total height of the dam
giving the hydraulic charge which results in infiltrations through the porous bloc, the choice of
the slopes of the embankment which depend on the materials used and the position of the
saturation line which delimits the saturated part of the bloc.
We stress that all the heights of the filtering drainage blanket obtained using the graph are
included in the traditionally range used in the practical computations of homogeneous earth dams
(¼, ⅓).
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