Hydro-mechanical characterization of soil-rockfill mixtures

Abstract

In order to improve the rather insufficient knowledge about the hydro-mechanical behavior of soilrockfill mixtures (SRM) applied in embankment dams, a testing program was undertaken in which several mixtures with different coarse fractions (CF) were tested (30%, 40%, 50% and 70%). It is an environmentally friendly material that takes advantage of the material excavated for spillways, cut-off trenches, outlet works and other structures that would go to deposit and can be reused. Recently, especially in road engineering, it has been giving particular attention to SRM by the fact that many embankments, constructed with such materials, have presented a poor performance and required, in many cases, the implementation of corrective measures. The same thing happened with some dams constructed with this type of material started to present substantial deformations. Meimoa dam and Beliche dam are examples of dams that have this type of material in their body and presented misbehavior .This study presents, for the first time, a systematic experimental program of this type material that exist in nature, involving isotropic and K0 compression tests, undrained triaxial tests and permeability tests for different coarse fractions, and aims improving the knowledge about the behavior of this material.