Charles, J. A. (2008). Geotechnique 58, No. 7, 541570 [doi: 10.1680/geot.2008.58.7.

541]

The engineering behaviour of fill materials: the use, misuse and disuse
of case histories
J. A . C H A R L E S *
Un certain nombre de developpements survenant dans
notre monde moderne, y compris laugmentation de
lurbanisation, la presence dimportants plans damenagement du territoire ainsi que lelimination de quantites
considerables de dechets solides, produits par les exploitations minie`res et les activites industrielles, devraient
assurer que, dans un avenir previsible, les terrains rapportes auront une importance toujours majeure en geotechnique. Un terrain rapporte specialement amenage,
fortement compacte en couches de faible epaisseur et
dans des conditions controlees de tre`s pre`s, devrait etre
un materiau relativement uniforme, presentant un comportement facilement previsible sur la base de proprietes
moyennes. Par contraste, un terrain rapporte mal compacte, rempli de facon peu controlee avec des couches
profondes est susceptible detre peu compacte et de presenter une grande diversite de proprietes geotechniques :
le comportement de ces terrains rapportes a tre`s peu en
commun avec ces proprietes moyennes, et sera determine
en grande partie par des zones de remplissage a` letat
metastable et au comportement imprevisible. On examine
des etudes de cas de comportement de terrains rapportes
dans quatre dinteret pratique pour le geotechnicien :
(a) le comportement geotechnique de remblais de mises a`
ciel ouvert ; (b) le comportement de barrages en enrochement ; (c) lefficacite du traitement du sol ; et (d) evaluation de letat de barrages en remblai. Dans chacune de
ces categories, la communication se penche sur les resultats de controles a` long terme sur le terrain dans un
certain nombre de sites, et a` partir desquels elle tire des
conclusions generales. Lexamen detudes de cas necessite
un certain discernement, mais en depit de ses insuffisances, il fournit une compensation bien necessaire a` une
tendance excessive aux grandes theories.

A number of developments in our modern world, including increasing urbanisation, major land reclamation
schemes and the disposal of vast quantities of solid waste
generated by mining and industrial activities, should
ensure that, for the foreseeable future, fills will be of
increasing significance in geotechnical engineering. An
engineered fill, which has been heavily compacted in thin
layers under closely controlled conditions, should be a
relatively uniform material and have behaviour that is
easily predicted on the basis of average properties. In
contrast, poorly compacted fill dumped with little control
in deep lifts is likely to be in a loose state and exhibit
great diversity in its geotechnical properties: the behaviour of such heterogeneous fill will bear little relation to
average properties, and will be controlled largely by
zones of fill in a metastable state with unpredictable
behaviour. Case histories that include field measurementsthat is, quantitative dataare of particular value
in gaining an understanding of the performance of fill
materials. Case histories of fill behaviour are examined
in four areas of practical interest to the geotechnical
engineer: (a) the geotechnical behaviour of opencast
mining backfills; (b) the performance of rockfill dams;
(c) the effectiveness of ground treatment; and (d) the
condition assessment of embankment dams. In each of
these areas the lecture focuses on the results of long-term
field monitoring at a number of sites, from which some
general conclusions are drawn. Discernment is required
in the study of case histories, but despite shortcomings,
they provide a much needed counterweight to excessive
theorisation.
KEYWORDS: case history; compressibility; dams; deformation;
embankments; field instrumentation; ground improvement;
monitoring; rockfill; settlement; time dependence

INTRODUCTION
Importance of case histories
Quotations from great geotechnical men of the past have
often been included in Rankine Lectures. In a deviation from
this precedent, the following quotation is from a nineteenthcentury prime minister. Benjamin Disraeli wrote:

exaggeration can establish an important point, and biographiesthat is, accounts of the lives of real peoplecan give
an insight into the human condition at a particular time and
place that a general historical narrative, which is likely to be
heavily biased by the preconceived ideas of the historian,
may fail to do.
Substituting case history for biography, an analogous
recommendation to a geotechnical engineer would be: Study
no theory: read nothing but case histories, for that is actual
ground behaviour undistorted by preconceived theoretical
concepts. Such a recommendation would be unwise, for
several reasons.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life

without theory.
In the nineteenth century, as in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries, not everyone was prepared to accept the advice of
a prime minister, and undoubtedly this particular recommendation was based on an oversimplification of the true
position. To appreciate life in a vanished age does require
some general understanding of the times. However, an

(a) The complexity of ground behaviour means that,

without some preconceived ideas and a basic conceptual model of soil behaviour, it will not be possible
to make sense of field observations, which will remain
as unconnected facts. It is necessary to have a
theoretical framework within which information from
case histories can be assimilated.
(b) As with biographies, case histories will not be full and

Discussion on this paper closes on 2 March 2009, for further

details see p. ii.
* Building Research Establishment, UK.

541

542

CHARLES

impartial records of events, but inevitably will be

influenced by the perspective of the writer in the
selection and presentation of material.
(c) The subjects of case histories will tend to be the
unusual, and the neglect of the ordinary case will mean
that they are unlikely to be representative.

uous history of geotechnical research at BRE has made it

possible to undertake long-term measurements of ground
movements associated with many types of buildings and
civil engineering works (Charles et al., 1996).

Nevertheless, despite these limitations, case histories have a

vital role in geotechnical engineering, and are of far greater
importance than in other branches of civil engineering.
The overwhelming need for reliable experimental geotechnical data has long been appreciated. In 1881 Benjamin
Baker published a paper on The actual lateral pressure of
earthwork. It might be questioned why the word actual
was included in the title. Would not papers on lateral earth
pressures always deal with actual pressures? A perusal of
technical papers from Bakers time up to our own day will
soon expose the error of such a nave notion. Baker deplored
the lack of experimental data, because it meant that individual judgement has to be exercised in each instance, and he
reminded his readers that Professor Rankine (1864) concluded the section on earth pressure in his Manual of civil
engineering with the following warning: There is a mathematical theory of the combined action of friction and adhesion in earth; but for want of precise experimental data its
practical utility is doubtful. The same comment could be
made about the use of any numerical soil model which lacks
experimental data to confirm its validity.
Fifty-five years after Bakers paper was published, the
great need for field data was stressed by Karl Terzaghi
(1936) in his presidential address to the First International
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering
when he affirmed that:

Significance of fill
Mankind has been creating fill throughout recorded history. Some 4000 years ago, over a considerable period and
for purposes that we cannot now determine, the 40 m high
Silbury Hill in Wiltshire was carefully engineered in a series
of six stepped horizontal layers. Its complex internal structure was created by concentric rings of chalk block walls,
which together with radial walls, formed compartments that
were infilled with chalk rubble. Cross-sections of some
engineered fills constructed during the last 4000 years are
shown in Fig. 1, and details are provided in Table 1.
It is a sad reflection on human progress that, 3000 years
after the building of Silbury Hill, William the Conqueror
was throwing up mounds of earth, in what by then had
become England, on which to build crude fortifications for
military purposes that are only too easy to recognise. In
1069 a 15 m high mound was built on low-lying ground
adjacent to the river in York to facilitate the subjugation of
the north of England. The mound was built in horizontal
layers of fill comprising stones, gravel and clay. Initially the
mound provided a base for a timber structure; the stone
tower known as Cliffords Tower was built on the mound in
the middle of the thirteenth century. Major cracking of the
tower occurred in 131516 during severe floods, which
softened the fill.
It was only in the nineteenth century, in the great age of
embankment dam building, that earthworks as high as Silbury Hill were again constructed in England. In the twen-

. . . successful work in soil mechanics and foundation

engineering requires not only a thorough grounding in
theory combined with an open eye for the possible sources
of error, but also an amount of observation and of
measurement in the field far in excess of anything
attempted by the preceding generations of engineers.
The importance of making field measurements was also
recognised by Leonard Cooling (1945) of the Building Research Station, which later became the Building Research
Establishment (BRE), when speaking at the Institution of
Civil Engineers in June of that year:
As regards the future development of soil mechanics, I
think the emphasis needs to be placed on the more
practical engineering research side of taking measurements
and observations of full-sized structures and constructional
work and of linking these with the properties of the soil
strata at the site. Laboratory tests and theoretical
considerations, vital as they are, must be related to field
experience.
In his Rankine Lecture, Cooling (1962) again stressed the
importance of field measurements. As a diagnosis of what
was needed and a recommendation of the direction that
geotechnical engineering should take, the comments of
Terzaghi and Cooling showed great insight, but when Terzaghi added a word of prophecy to the effect that the centre
of gravity of research has shifted from the study and the
laboratory into the construction camp where it will remain,
he proved to be overly optimistic.
The most valuable case histories are those where field
measurements have been used to monitor the geotechnical
performance of structures over their working life, not just
during construction. Such case histories are relatively rare,
because long-term monitoring projects are expensive and
require continuity over a lengthy period. The long, contin-

Cliffords Tower Mound

Silbury
Hill

Dale Dyke Dam

Brianne
Dam

50 m
Scale

Nurek Dam

Fig. 1. Some engineered fills, 2000

BC

to

AD

2000

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Table 1. Engineered fills 2000

BC

to

AD

543

2000

Structure

Location

Purpose

Silbury Hill
Cliffords Tower Mound
Dale Dyke Dam
Brianne dam
Nurek Dam
Chek Lap Kok Airport

Wiltshire, England
York, England
Sheffield, England
Llandovery, Wales
Tajikistan
Hong Kong

Unknown
Military
Retain water
Retain water
Retain water
Platform for airport

tieth century fills were placed on an unprecedented scale to

construct embankment dams and road embankments, to form
sites for buildings by infilling excavations, and in other
forms of land reclamation. In the late twentieth century the
90 m high Brianne Dam, which is the highest dam in Great
Britain, was built in Wales. Elsewhere in the world much
higher embankment dams have been constructed: the 300 m
high Nurek Dam, which was built in the old Soviet Union,
is the highest dam in the world.
These engineered fill structures are quite small compared
with the vast quantities of non-engineered fills being dumped
as mining, industrial, chemical, building, dredging, commercial and domestic wastes. The total volume of mining waste
currently produced annually in the world is probably of the
order of 10 billion cubic metres (10 3 109 m3 ). This not
only dwarfs the volumes of engineered fill used on the
largest dam projects, but is also greatly in excess of the 194
3 106 m3 placed in the massive land reclamation works for
Chek Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong.

Use and nature of field measurements

In studying case histories of fill behaviour that include
field measurements, three basic questions need to be addressed: What can be obtained from field measurements?
What types of properties or behaviour should be measured?
How can field measurements be made?
(a) Benefits of field measurements. The most important
benefit for those responsible for the design, construction
and subsequent performance of an instrumented structure is that its behaviour can be better assessed.
Assuming that the case history is made publicly
available, the measured behaviour can also provide a
benchmark for use in calibrating the behaviour of
similar structures. The monitoring results also should
enhance the general understanding of geotechnical
behaviour.
(b) Geotechnical properties and behaviour to be monitored.
In different situations, pore water pressure, total stress,
vertical and horizontal displacement and strain may be
measured. Settlement is often the simplest parameter to
measure, and in many cases it is the most critical
performance criterion.
(c) Instrumentation and equipment. Reliable and accurate
field measurements on large civil engineering sites are
difficult to achieve, requiring not only considerable
skill, experience and perseverance in difficult conditions, but also significant expenditure. In the case
histories that are presented here, surface settlement has
generally been measured using precise levelling techniques, but in some situations a theodolite has also been
used. Subsurface movements have been monitored using
magnet extensometers installed in boreholes in opencast
mining backfills (Marsland & Quarterman, 1974;
Charles et al., 1977) and horizontal plate gauges

Date built

pre-2000
1069
1864
1971
1980
1996

BC

Height: m

Volume:
106 m3

Surface area:
ha

40
15
29
90
300
25

0.25
0.04
0.4
2.0
58
194

2
0.4
4
7
60
1248

installed during construction in embankment dams

(Penman & Charles, 1973a, 1982). Descriptions of the
instrumentation can be found in references cited in the
text.
Scope of the lecture
Having emphasised the growing significance of fill and
the importance of case histories, it is appropriate to move
from general comments to particular case histories of fill
behaviour in four areas of practical interest to the geotechnical engineer:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d )

the
the
the
the

geotechnical behaviour of opencast mining backfills

performance of rockfill dams
effectiveness of ground treatment
condition assessment of embankment dams.

Since these are all large subjects that cannot be dealt with in
a comprehensive manner, each section focuses on the results
of BRE field monitoring at a number of sites, from which
some general conclusions are drawn.
GEOTECHNICAL BEHAVIOUR OF OPENCAST MINING
BACKFILLS
In 1949 the Building Research Station (now BRE) published Digest No. 9, Building on made-up ground or filling,
which stated that
Suitable sites for new buildings and estates in industrial
areas are becoming more difficult to find and it is more
frequently necessary to build on made-up ground or filling.
The passing of nearly 60 years has not invalidated this
statement, but the qualifying phrase in industrial areas is
now no longer needed. Opencast mining has been a major
producer of deep fills whose geotechnical behaviour is of
critical importance when restored opencast sites are considered for building development. The principal practical interest concerns the potential for long-term settlement of the
backfill. Where use of a restored site for building purposes
is foreseen prior to backfilling, the fill should be placed in
layers and heavily compacted to an appropriate specification
under controlled conditions: such an engineered fill should
be reasonably uniform, with a potential for settlement that is
both limited and predictable. Where such a future use is not
foreseen, or was ignored and backfilling was carried out
with little control and without systematic compaction, the
situation is very different.
Creep settlement soil model
Early work on the settlement of fill was carried out at
BRE by Meyerhof (1951), who, from a literature review,
presented the long-term creep settlement data shown in Fig.
2. Although the settlement of the fill materials varied from
30% for domestic refuse to less than 1% for compacted

CHARLES

544
0

Time since fill placement: years

5
4
2
3

Settlement as percentage of height of fill

7
2

1. Well-compacted,
well-graded soil

5
2. Medium-compacted
rockfill

10

15

3. Lightly compacted
clay and chalk

20

4. Uncompacted sand
5. Uncompacted clay

25
6. Well-compacted
mixed refuse

30

Fig. 2. Settlement of fills (after Meyerhof, 1951)

rockfill, the creep rate of all the fills diminished with time,
leading to the conclusion that, if fill is left long enough, the
rate of settlement of the ground surface will become negligible. This comforting conclusion suggests a simple solution
to developing a filled site: leave the site for long enough
and significant settlement will cease. But is this so, and if it
is so, for how long must the site be left?
For many rockfill dams in the United States, Sowers et al.
(1965) found an approximately linear relationship between
crest settlement and the logarithm of time that had elapsed
since the middle of the construction period, as shown in Fig.
3. The values of the creep compression rate parameter
05
0

Time from middle of construction period: years

5
10
20
1
2

35

Crest settlement as percentage of height of embankment

Lewis Smith

Dix
River

05

where s is the settlement of fill of height H between times

t1 and t2 after fill placement, and is the vertical compression occurring during one logarithmic cycle of time (e.g.
between 1 and 10 years since fill placement).
Since this simple settlement model is based on self-weight
creep, it might seem appropriate for estimating the settlement of the shallow foundations of low-rise buildings where
the extra loading imposed by the buildings is often of little
significance. As shown by equation (2), the creep settlement
soil model indicates that the rate of settlement of the ground
surface will be proportional to the depth of the fill and
inversely proportional to the length of time that has elapsed
since the fill was placed, such that

Nantahala
10

15
Rockfill

: %

UD

Dumped limestone

11

78

SC

Dumped graywacke

07

97

SC

Compacted sandstone 02

Dam

Date

Height: m

Type

Dix River

1925

84

Nantahala

1942

Lewis Smith

1961

ranged from 0.2% to 1.1%, where is the compression

occurring during one logarithmic cycle of time. This behaviour is similar to the secondary compression of clay soils.
The value of was not related to the type or strength of the
parent rock, the form of dam construction (e.g. the position
of the watertight element), or the embankment height. The
significant factor was the method of placement of the rockfill. The greatest values were obtained where rockfill had
been dumped, whereas in the dam with the smallest value
the rockfill had been compacted by rolling while being
sluiced. In all these dams the upstream location of the
watertight element meant that crest settlement would be little
affected by changes in stress in the rockfill embankment due
to fluctuations in reservoir level or the consolidation of a
low-permeability core.
For most types of fill there is a linear relation between
creep compression and the logarithm of time that has
elapsed since the load was applied, and a simple settlement
model can be derived for self-weight creep: that is to say,
the settlement that occurs when stress and moisture conditions do not change, which can be expressed by the equation


t2
(1)
s H log
t1

Fig. 3. Settlement of three USA rockfill dams (derived from

Sowers et al., 1965): , creep compression rate; UD, upstream
deck; SC, upstream-sloping core

s
H
4:34
t
t

mm=year

(2)

where is in %, s/t is the rate of settlement in

millimetres per year, H is the height or depth of fill in
metres, and t is the time in years that has elapsed since fill
placement.
Not only does the creep rate diminish with time, it also
does so in an orderly and, provided the magnitude of the
parameter is known, predictable way. Kilkenny (1968)
quoted 0.74% for an opencast mining backfill at

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Chibburn in Northumberland, and data presented by Lange
(1986) suggested that, for backfills in the Rhenish brown
coal area, typically 0.5% to 1.0% for backfills less than
100 m high, with greater values for deeper fills.

Settlement of opencast mining backfills

Long-term monitoring of settlement has been carried out
by BRE at several restored opencast mining sites to investigate the behaviour of the backfills and their suitability for
building developments. Information about fill properties is
given in Table 2, but, since the fills are heterogeneous and
at some locations contain large boulders, the values for the
geotechnical properties that are quoted can at best only be
regarded as reasonably typical. A crucial issue in the investigation was to examine the validity of the creep settlement
model, which describes the settlement that occurs when
stress and moisture conditions do not change, bearing in
mind that most poorly compacted, partially saturated fills
undergo a reduction in volume when inundated or submerged for the first time, which is commonly termed
collapse settlement or collapse compression.
Instrumentation could be installed and monitoring commenced only when fill placement was complete. Precise
levelling of surface settlement stations was combined with
settlement observations at depth within the fill using settlement gauges consisting of magnet extensometers installed in
vertical boreholes. Groundwater levels also were monitored.

Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Horsley

Backfilling took place between 1961 and 1970 at Horsley
opencast coal mining site, near Newcastle. The fill is
composed principally of mudstone and sandstone fragments,
with mudstone predominating. Boulders occupy less than
10% of the backfill. In the upper part of the workings
excavation of the overburden was carried out by face
shovels, and backfilling was by end tipping from dump
trucks; in the lower part excavation was by dragline. There
was no systematic compaction of the fill, which has a
maximum depth of 70 m. During opencast operations there
had been a lagoon at one location, and another part of the
site had been preloaded with a 30 m high spoil heap. A field

545

test in a borehole at the site of the lagoon indicated a fill

permeability greater than 10
4 m/s.
Following restoration of the site in 1973, the settlement of
the backfill was monitored throughout a 19-year period
(Charles et al., 1977, 1984, 1993). The location of five
magnet extensometers (gauges A9, B2, C11, D1 and D15)
and five traverses of surface settlement stations (A, B, C, D
and E) are shown on the plan of the site in Fig. 4. Details
of the ground conditions are given in Table 3.
The surface settlement measured by precise levelling at
various locations between 1973 and 1992 is shown in Fig. 5.
The largest settlement, 0.8 m, was measured at surface
settlement station E12 (Fig. 5(b)), and particularly small
settlements, 0.1 m, were measured at gauge C11 (Fig. 5(a)),
which was at the site of the lagoon, and at gauge D1 (Fig.
5(b)),where the fill had been temporarily preloaded by a
spoil heap. The special circumstances at the locations of
C11 and D1, together with variations in the age and depth
of the fill across the site, provide an explanation for some of
the large differences in settlement, but by no means all of
them. Furthermore, when settlement is plotted on a logarithmic timescale, as shown in Fig. 6, a pattern of behaviour is
revealed that is remarkably different from the linear relationship between settlement and logarithm of time since fill

Traverse of surface
settlement stations
Borehole settlement gauge

N
C
C11
Lagoon

Pump
B2
B

Overburden heap
D1
D

Oldest
A9
fill
A

D15
Most recent
fill

500 m
Scale

Fig. 4. Plan of Horsley opencast coal mining site

Table 2. Opencast mining backfills

(a) Coarse backfills
Location

Fill type

Horsley
Blindwells
Tamworth

Mudstone and sandstone

Mudstone and sandstone
Clay with shale fragments

Silt and
clay: %

rd :
Mg/m3

w: %

rs :
Mg/m3

n: %

Va: %

10
20
45

1.70
1.56
1.78

7
7
9

2.54
2.45
2.62

33
38
32

21
23
16

wP : %

wL : %

cu : kPa

23
17

41
28

150
100

(b) Clay backfills

Location

Ilkeston
Corby

w: %
Mean

Range

19
18

1225
728

The table presents typical values of geotechnical properties to give an indication of fill type, but it
should be noted that the most significant property of these non-engineered fills is their heterogeneity.
rd , dry density; rs , particle density; n, porosity; Va , percentage air voids; w, water content; wP, plastic
limit; wL, liquid limit; cu , undrained shear strength.

CHARLES

546

Table 3. Ground conditions in opencast mining backfill at Horsley

Gauge

Ground level:
mAOD
98.6
101.8
94.9
108.1
119.2
115.8

A9
B2
C11
D1
D15
E12

Rockhead:
mAOD
38.0
38.7
49.2
52.6
72.7
68

Fill depth:
m

Fill date

60.6
63.1
45.7
55.5
46.5
48

1961
1964
1965
1966
1970
1966

Inundated
depth: m

Settlement: m

46
45
35
31
11
17

19741977

19731992

0.31
0.33
0.06
0.10
0.15
0.35

0.40
0.50
0.11
0.10
0.31
0.79

Fill condition

Oldest
Deepest
Lagoon
Preloaded
Most recent
Intermediate age

 Period during which the groundwater level rose.

Total monitoring period.
No magnet extensometer at E12, but listed because maximum settlement recorded at this location.

1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992
0

Time since fill placement: years

10
20

30

100
C11

D15

300

Settlement: mm

A9
400
(a)
0
100

D1

200
300
400

Surface settlement as percentage of depth of fill

C11

200

05

B2

10

15

500

E12

B2

600
700
E12

800
(b)

Fig. 5. Long-term surface settlement of opencast backfill at

Horsley, 19731992 (after Charles et al., 1993)

placement that the simple creep model would suggest and

which Sowers et al. observed (Fig. 3).
The crucial factor is that it was necessary to dewater the
site during opencast mining, and pumping continued for
some time after the completion of backfilling, keeping the
water table below the level of the fill over much of the site.
During this period settlements were very small. When pumping stopped in 1974 the water table rose 34 m, reaching a
new equilibrium level in 1977. During this three-year period
large movements occurred. Table 3 lists the surface settlement measured at the gauges, first during the three years
(19741977) that the groundwater level rose, and second
during the whole of the 19-year monitoring period (1973
1992). The large arrows in Fig. 6 indicate the periods when
the water table was rising through the fill, and show the
critical role of the submergence of the fill in causing
collapse compression, although an increased rate of settlement was noticeable for several years after the water table
had reached an equilibrium level. The differences in the age
of the fill when subjected to a rise in groundwater level are
due principally to the different dates at which the various
locations were backfilled.

Fig. 6. Long-term surface settlement of opencast backfill at

Horsley with time plotted on a logarithmic scale

The settlement at depth within the fill at gauge B2 for the

entire monitoring period is shown in Fig. 7. The numbers in
brackets in Fig. 7(a) are the depths below ground surface of
the various magnet markers. Fig. 7(b) shows the rate at
which the groundwater rose up through the backfill. It was
during the three-year period in which the groundwater level
rose that large movements occurred.
In Fig. 8 the same data for gauge B2 are presented in
terms of vertical compression. In Fig. 8(a) the vertical strain
at different depths within the backfill (e.g. between magnet
markers 7 and 8) is plotted against time, and Fig. 8(b) shows
the dates by which the groundwater had risen to the levels
of the different magnet markers (e.g. May 1975 for magnet
marker 7 and February 1976 for magnet marker 8). The
depths of the magnet markers within the fill are shown in
Fig. 8(c). It can be seen that, as the water table rose,
settlement took place at the depth where this rise was
occurring. Collapse compressions locally were almost 2%,
although the average compression measured over the full
depth of inundated backfill was smaller than 1%.
Despite a clear link between surface settlement and collapse compression on inundation, Fig. 9 reveals not only a
distinctly non-uniform distribution of vertical compression
with depth at gauge B2, but also a large compression
occurring above the water table. The distribution of settlement with depth at gauges C11 and D1 in Fig. 10 confirms

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

0

1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992
4 (491 m)
6 (370 m)

Settlement: mm

100

8 (258 m)
200
9 (197 m)
300

10 (138 m)

400

13 (0 m)
500
(a)

13

10
10
Groundwater level
9

Depth: mm

20

8
30
6
40
4

50

60

Fill
1 Bedrock
(b)

Fig. 7. Relationship between settlement at different depths in

the fill and rise in groundwater level at gauge B2, Horsley,
19731992 (after Charles et al., 1993)
1973 1974
05

1975

1976

1977

1978

1979
(a)

overconsolidated and stiff, and at some depths there was

some heave. It is more surprising that the relatively finegrained, soft, wet lagoon fill at C11 should not settle much,
but before the rise in groundwater level, the settlement rate
at C11 was greater than in the other parts of the site.
Monitoring only commenced eight years after fill placement
was completed at C11, and it is likely that there was large
settlement in the early years when excess pore pressures
were dissipating.
Although the rise in groundwater level had a major influence on settlement behaviour, there were large variations in
collapse compression as fill was submerged at gauges A9,
B2 and D15, as seen in Fig. 11, where it could have been
expected that similar behaviour would be observed. The
heterogeneity of the fill has effectively masked any correlation between collapse compression and vertical stress in the
stress range 250 to 800 kPa.

Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Blindwells

Excavation at Blindwells opencast coal mine near Edinburgh began in 1978, and backfilling was carried out using
draglines, face shovels and end tipping. The fill has a maximum depth of 60 m, and comprises mudstone, siltstone and
sandstone. A 1.4 km section of the Tranent bypass trunk
road was to be built across the site and, to reduce settlement,
the top 16 m of the backfill was systematically compacted
on the line of the road. Fill on either side of the road
corridor did not receive any systematic compaction. The
typical density of the uncompacted fill is given in Table
2(a). The whole of the Blindwells opencast site was dewatered prior to the start of excavation, and the water table
was held down below the maximum excavation depth.
Magnet extensometers were installed in August 1984.
During the first 13 years of monitoring 0.5 m settlement
was measured in fill that had not been systematically
compacted and 0.2 m where the upper zone had been
compacted (Watts & Charles, 2003). Typical values in the
uncompacted fill were about 1%. In 1997 the groundwater
level began to rise, and there was an increase in surface
settlement of 0.3 m during the period in which the groundwater level rose by 15 m. Most of this settlement can be
related to a vertical compression of 1.4% in the submerged
fill, as seen in Fig. 12. Clearly, the long delay between fill
placement and the rise in groundwater level did not significantly reduce collapse potential.

67
05
10

13 GL
12
11
10
9
8
7
Fill
6
5
4
3
2
1 Bedrock

78
56

63 m

Vertical compression: %

547

15
20

4 5

89

910

(c)

(b)

Fig. 8. Vertical strain and groundwater level at gauge B2,

Horsley, 19731979 (after Charles et al., 1993)

that settlement has been particularly small over the 19-year

monitoring period at both these gauges compared with the
settlement monitored at B2 (Fig. 9). Settlement attributable
to the rise in groundwater level was very small in the wet
fill at C11 and in the preloaded fill at D1 (Table 3). The fill
that had been preloaded with a 30 m high surcharge of fill at
gauge D1 could be expected to settle least, as the fill is

Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Tamworth

Backfilling at an opencast coal mining site at Tamworth
in the English Midlands was completed in 1972. The
excavation was backfilled mainly by scrapers, with some end
tipping, and the maximum depth of fill was 32 m. The fill
was composed of clay and shale fragments, and the site was
restored with a sloping ground surface. Monitoring of
ground movements and water levels within the fill commenced in 1977 and continued until surcharge operations
began in 1995, prior to development of the site for housing
(Charles & Burford, 1987; Watts & Charles, 2003).
In Fig. 13 the settlement measured within the deepest part
of the backfill is shown in relation to the change in groundwater level within the fill. Surface settlement between June
and December 1977 was small, equivalent to a creep rate of
about 10 mm per year. In early 1978 the rate of creep
increased significantly, and a further 40 mm of settlement
occurred during the following two years. During 1980 a
substantial rise in the rate of settlement was recorded, and
by the beginning of 1983 about 250 mm of settlement had

CHARLES

548
0

Depth below ground level: m

Settlement: m
02
03

01

04

Vertical compression: %
0
1
2

05

20

Rise in
groundwater
level
40

60

Fig. 9. Settlement and vertical compression against depth at gauge B2, Horsley

10

100
11

10

200
D1

10

800

7
20
7

6
C11
30

5
5

4
40

3
2

50 1

Vertical stress: kPa

Depth below ground level: m

1000

Settlement: mm
0
200

100

600

400

3
2
1

200

Fig. 10. Comparison of settlement with depth at gauges C11

and D1, Horsley
0

occurred. Surface settlement then continued at a rate of

almost 40 mm per year for the next 10 years.
Such movements are greatly in excess of any anticipated
creep settlement. It seems likely that groundwater was
penetrating into the opencast backfill from old unsealed
workings and then seeping through the fill. A rise in groundwater level in 19941995 between magnet markers D and E
caused a significant increase in settlement at that depth,
confirming that the backfill had some collapse potential.
Ground treatment by preloading with a 7 m high surcharge
of fill was carried out in 1995 and induced some 0.2 m of
surface settlement.
Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Ilkeston
The opencast coal mining backfills at Horsley, Blindwells
and Tamworth were essentially granular, as illustrated by the
typical properties given in Table 2(a). The susceptibility to

10
Collapse compression: %

20

Fig. 11. Effect of submergence on Horsley backfill at settlement

gauges A2, B9 and D15

collapse compression of opencast backfills that are predominantly clay has been investigated at sites at Ilkeston and
Corby, and some typical properties are given in Table 2(b).
The stiff clay backfill at Ilkeston was placed by scrapers
without any additional systematic compaction in 1959. There
was no water table within the backfill.
In 1973 a newly constructed block of eight two-storey
houses suffered some settlement when excavation for drains
began close to the north gable end and, following heavy
rain, further movement took place in the centre of the row
of houses. Soon all the houses in the block were affected,
and movements continued, although underpinning and pres-

2002

2003

1999

2000
2001

1996

1997
1998

1994

1995

1991
1992
1993

1988

1989
1990

1985

1986
1987

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Settlement: mm

200
C
E
400
G
600
I
K

Water level: m below ground level

800
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60

K
I

E
New
inundation

Backfill
Natural ground

1994

1995

1993

1991

1992

B
C

200
D
400
E

600

F
H

800

Water level: m below ground level

1990

1988

1989

1987

1986

1985

1984

1982

1983

1981

1980

1978

1979

1977
Settlement: mm

H
F

10
E
D

New
inundation

20
C
Backfill
30

in 24 h of filling the trenches with water, additional settlements of up to 50 mm had been recorded, confirming that
water penetrating into the opencast backfill via surface
trenches could cause significant collapse compression. Fig.
14 shows the settlement measured at various depths within
the fill at a magnet extensometer installed 1.5 m from two of
the trenches. Settlement occurred immediately water was put
into the trenches, and the compression was located between
magnet marker g, 0.5 m below ground level, and magnet
marker e, 7 m below ground level. Six days after the start
of the test 40 mm settlement had occurred, and the trenches
were backfilled. However, settlement continued at a significant rate. A temporary increase in the rate of settlement in
late 1976 followed a period of heavy rainfall. The average
vertical compression between magnet markers g and e
over the whole monitoring period was 2.6%.

Fig. 12. Settlement of opencast backfill at Blindwells, 19852003

(after Watts & Charles, 2003)

549

B
A

Natural ground

Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Corby

At the Snatchill experimental site, the 24 m deep opencast
ironstone mining backfill had been placed by a large walking
dragline, so that the upper part of the backfill was composed
of large lumps or clods of stiff clay, with an undrained shear
strength of 100 kPa. There was no water table within the
backfill. Restoration had been completed in 1970, and in
1975 three 50 m square areas were treated with different
forms of ground treatment prior to housing development.
Houses were also built on untreated ground (Charles et al.,
1978; Burford & Charles, 1991).
One area was inundated via 1 m deep trenches at 10 m
centres. The trenches were filled with water in February
1975 and backfilled in June 1975. The average surface
settlement induced by this inundation was 0.1 m. During the
first 10 days of the experiment about 90 m3 of water was
absorbed by the backfill, but comparatively little was absorbed subsequently. About half this volume was lost from
one trench. The largest settlement was measured at a magnet
extensometer that was only 2 m from this trench, and, as
shown in Fig. 15, settlement continued after the trenches
had been backfilled. Prior to the inundation test the ground
surface settled at about 1 mm per month, whereas during the
inundation test the fill surface settled 165 mm in 6 months,
principally as a result of vertical compression of 5.6%
between magnet marker g, 2.3 m below ground level, and
magnet marker f, 4.5 m below ground level. In the 6 years
subsequent to the end of the inundation test the fill surface
settled 118 mm, mainly as a result of compression of 1.8%
between magnet marker f, 4.5 m below ground level, and
magnet marker e, 12.1 m below ground level. During the
following 9 years the fill surface settled 25 mm, principally
because of some small further compression between 4.5 m
and 12.1 m below ground level.

Fig. 13. Settlement of opencast backfill at Tamworth, 19771995

(after Watts & Charles, 2003)

sure grouting were carried out. A year after the houses were
completed, floor levels showed a maximum differential settlement of 0.14 m across the 9 m wide block, and the east
wall was 0.065 m out of plumb. The houses were never
occupied, and the block was demolished in 1982, by which
time there was an estimated total settlement of 0.3 m.
It was suspected that water penetrating into the fill
through drain trenches had initiated collapse compression
within the backfill, and a field inundation test was carried
out (Charles & Burford, 1987). When 3 m deep trenches
were filled with water to a depth of 1.8 m, the rates at which
water levels fell in the different trenches varied from as little
as 0.04 m/h (0.08 m3 /h) to as much as 1 m/h (2 m3 /h). With-

Settlement: mm

1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981

d
e

f
100

h
g
12 m

f
e

Backfill

d
gh

c
Natural
b ground
a

200 Inundation
test

Fig. 14. Inundation test on opencast mining backfill at Ilkeston,

19741981 (after Charles & Burford, 1987)

CHARLES

550

100
f

d
c
b Natural
a ground

200

300

House
construction
Trenches
backfilled
Inundation test
commenced

gh

Fig. 15. Inundation test on opencast mining backfill at Corby,

19741986 (after Charles & Burford, 1987)

20

Settlement: mm

Settlement: mm

1975
1977
1979
1981
1983
1985
1974
1976
1978
1980
1982
1984
1986
0
h
g
f
24 m e Backfill

Settlement
due to
deep
mining

40

60

80

100

120

Settlement of colliery spoil at Coalville

The vulnerability of poorly compacted opencast mining
backfills to collapse compression on inundation is just one
aspect of their metastable conditionthat is, an apparently
stable condition that requires only a minimal disturbance to
initiate a change to a truly stable state. The change from a
metastable state to a stable state can involve a substantial
reduction in volume of the fill, and hence substantial settlement of the ground surface. The behaviour of colliery spoil
at Coalville demonstrated that inundation is not the only
phenomenon that can trigger a sudden reduction in the
volume of a non-engineered fill in a metastable state
(Skinner et al., 1997).
In a major land reclamation scheme some clay pits were
backfilled with freshly mined colliery spoil brought in lorries
from a local colliery and tipped in lifts 1.5 to 2 m high.
There was no compaction other than that provided by the
lorries running over the surface of each layer. Typically siltsized particles constituted about 40% of the spoil. The holes
were dewatered before and during the filling operation, but
water levels were not controlled afterwards. A sudden increase in settlement in the middle hole in the spring of 1982
was caused by deep mining. The total settlement monitored
by precise levelling at this location was 0.6 m, but most of
the mining subsidence occurred in the strata below the base
of the backfill. A magnet extensometer measured the settlement relative to the base of the backfilled hole, and this
showed that the large, deep-seated movement in the underlying strata had triggered 60 mm of compression in the
backfill, as shown in Fig. 16.
The colliery spoil was also susceptible to collapse compression on inundation. At one location in the south hole,
where there was 6.5 m of fill, 0.47 m of settlement occurred
between November 1978 and January 1979, corresponding
to an average vertical compression of 7%, which was
associated with very heavy rainfall in December.
Conclusions
The field data from the case histories of the long-term
behaviour of opencast mining backfills have provided a
conclusive answer to the question Can building development safely take place on a deep opencast mining backfill,
which has been placed without controlled systematic compaction, when a specified period of time has elapsed since
fill placement? Poorly compacted opencast backfill placed
with little or no control is likely to be in a metastable
condition and, irrespective of the age of the fill, there is a
risk that some small disturbance, such as an increase in
water content, will cause a significant reduction in volume.
Collapse potential does not automatically reduce with time

140

1980

1981

1982

1983

Fig. 16. Settlement of colliery spoil at Coalville due to deep

mining, 19791983 (after Skinner et al., 1997)

and, unless it can be established that the fill does not have
significant collapse potential (e.g. a previous inundation or
wet placement of the fill should have greatly reduced, if not
eliminated the potential for further collapse), there will be a
risk that collapse settlement could occur during or subsequent to building on the site and, consequently, either deep
foundations or ground treatment are likely to be required.
Collapse compression can result from a rising groundwater level, but may also occur above the water table from
downward infiltration of surface water or groundwater infiltration into the backfill through the high wall of an opencast
mine. There is likely to be some time dependence in the
response to wetting, particularly where inundation is due to
downward percolation of water or in a clay fill. The field
experiments have demonstrated that water infiltration from
the ground surface via trenches can cause collapse compression in clay fill that continues for many years, and can be as
large as 6%. The non-uniform response to inundation at
different locations within clay fill indicated that it was not a
practical form of ground treatment.
The engineering behaviour of poorly compacted heterogeneous fills is difficult to predict, and may bear little relationship to average values of geotechnical properties. Settlement
that damages buildings will be largely a function of the most
adverse properties encountered within the fill. Well-documented case histories, with long-term field measurements, provide
a helpful basis for assessing likely field performance.
Significant creep movements can occur in poorly compacted fill, and for mudstone/sandstone fill values of the
order of 1% are typically observed. Creep movements will
generally be relatively small, unless the fill is very deep or
has been placed quite recently. Where settlement predictions
are based, either explicitly or implicitly, on the simple creep
settlement model, building developments may appear to be
successful simply because inundation of the fill has not yet
occurred. However, at some restored opencast sites and other
types of filled site large collapse settlements have occurred
subsequent to building development, with unpleasant consequences for the buildings (Charles & Watts, 2001).
PERFORMANCE OF ROCKFILL DAMS
There is an instructive contrast between the performance
of poorly compacted opencast backfills and the behaviour of

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

engineered fills placed in a heavily compacted state to form
embankment dams. While the engineered fills have properties that are much superior to those of the opencast backfills,
the water retaining structures that they form must meet more
complex requirements. It is important that unsatisfactory
behaviour in an embankment dam is detected at an early
stage, and this is greatly assisted by a sound appreciation of
what constitutes normal satisfactory behaviour.
British rockfill dams
Deformations have been monitored by BRE at several
rockfill dams. and basic information about the heavily
compacted rockfills used in these dams is summarised in
Tables 4 and 5. A determining factor in the behaviour of
these embankments is the nature and position of the impermeable or watertight element. The materials forming this
vital element of the dam are described as impermeable and
watertight, in contrast to the highly permeable rockfill; in
practice they have a finite, although very small, permeability.
Scammonden Dam in West Yorkshire has an unusually
wide crest, which carries the M62 motorway (Fig. 17(b)).
The dam is founded on Carboniferous shales, and there is a
deep grout curtain under the upstream-sloping clay core.
The clay core was placed at a water content well above
Proctor optimum, and is protected on both upstream and
downstream sides by filter material (Penman & Mitchell,
1970). It was anticipated that its upstream location would
ensure that settlement of the clay core would not affect the
motorway. The rockfill is formed from Carboniferous sandstone, with three mudstone zones in the middle of the
embankment. Prior to embankment construction, extensive
trials demonstrated that multi-row blasting produced a wellgraded fill that could be placed and compacted to a high
density, while ripping and single-row blasting were unsatisfactory (Williams & Stothard, 1967). The downstream slope
is 1 in 1.8. The upstream slope is 1 in 3.1 close to the
foundation and progressively steepens to 1 in 1.8 close to
the crest; there is a weight block at the upstream toe. The
embankment was completed in September 1969. Reservoir

551

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Fig. 17. Cross-sections of rockfill dams showing location of

horizontal plate gauges: (a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c)
Winscar; (d) Megget

impounding commenced in July 1969 and the reservoir was

full in June 1972. Four horizontal plate gauges were installed on the major section of the dam during construction,
and the measurements of the deformations of the embankment have been described by Penman et al. (1971).
Brianne Dam is situated in central Wales (Carlyle, 1973).
It is founded on a Palaeozoic slatey mudstone, and the area
beneath the central clay core was grouted to a shallow depth.
The upstream and downstream rockfill shoulders were
formed by heavily compacting the plate-like fragments of
the slatey mudstone rockfill, with water added during placement. The upstream slope is 1 vertical in 2 horizontal, and
the average downstream slope is 1 in 1.75, as shown in Fig.
17(a). The clay core was placed wet of optimum water
content, and is protected on both upstream and downstream
sides by transition and filter material. Embankment construction was completed in November 1971, and reservoir impounding commenced immediately. The reservoir was full

Table 4. Field placement of rockfill

Dam

Scammonden
Brianne
Winscar
Marchlyn
Megget
Roadford

Date built

1969
1971
1974
1979
1981
1989

Height: m

73
90
53
47
56
41

Rockfill

Vibrating roller
Layer depth: m

Number of passes

Weight: t

0.9
0.9
1.7
1.0
0.4
0.45

5
4
4
4
4
8

11.5
13.5
13.5
13.5
5.5
9.1

Sandstone/mudstone
Slatey mudstone
Sandstone
Slate
Gravel
Sandstone/mudstone

Table 5. Field density of rockfill

Location
Scammonden
Brianne
Winscar
Marchlyn
Roadford

rd : Mg/m3

w: %

rs : Mg/m3

n: %

Va: %

2.02
2.35
2.03
2.25
2.07

7
3
6
4
4

2.69
2.75
2.60
2.81
2.74

25
15
22
20
24

11
7
10
11
15

rd , dry density of fill; rs , particle density; n, porosity; Va , percentage air voids; w, water
content.

CHARLES

by the beginning of January 1973. Three horizontal plate

gauges were installed on the major section of the dam
during construction, and the deformation measurements have
been described by Penman & Charles (1973b, 1973c). In
1996 the spillway crest was raised by 1.0 m, and a concrete
wall was inserted into the top of the embankment above the
clay core to extend the watertight element to the underside
of the crest road (Hughes, 1998).
Winscar Dam (Fig. 17(c)) in west Yorkshire is founded on
Millstone Grit sandstone that contains a little shale (Collins
& Humphreys, 1974). The heavily compacted sandstone
rockfill is from the same Carboniferous series as found at
Scammonden, and water was added to the rockfill during
placement. The upstream asphaltic concrete membrane or
facing was placed on the 1 in 1.7 upstream slope after
embankment construction was completed. The downstream
slope is 1 in 1.4. The deformation measurements obtained
from three horizontal plate gauges installed on the major
section of the dam during construction have been described
by Penman & Charles (1985a). Major leakage problems were
encountered during first filling of the reservoir, and supplementary foundation grouting was carried out as well as
repairs to the asphaltic membrane. Although the crack in the
membrane was only about the size of a matchbox, it caused
serious leakage. The identification and repair of the asphaltic
concrete facing of the dam have been described by Routh
(1988). During the early impounding period the reservoir
level reached more than 80% of its maximum height, but
the reservoir was completely emptied in 1980 to permit
repairs to the asphaltic membrane. The first successful
complete filling of the reservoir was in 19811982, but
problems recurred in the 1990s. Further leakage investigations and repairs have been described by Wilson & Robertshaw (1998) and Carter et al. (2002); a geocomposite liner
was installed on the upstream slope in 2001.
Megget Dam (Fig. 17(d)) in southern Scotland has a
central asphaltic core, which is supported by heavily compacted, well-graded gravel shoulders (Gallacher, 1988). Asphaltic concrete cores are sometimes referred to as
bituminous cores or diaphragms. The upstream slope is 1 in
1.5, and the downstream slope steepens from 1 in 2.1 at the
base of the dam to 1 in 1.5 at the crest. A 60 m deep grout
curtain was formed in the rock along the centreline of the
dam. The embankment was completed in October 1981, and
impounding commenced in May 1982. The reservoir reached
top water level for the first time in January 1986. The riprap on the steep upstream slope was damaged by severe
storms at the beginning of 1984. Bituminous grouting was
carried out on the upper part of the slope in 1997 (Gallacher
et al., 1998). Three horizontal plate gauges were installed on
the major section of the dam during construction (Penman &
Charles, 1985b).
Marchlyn Dam in north Wales forms the upper reservoir
of the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme (Baines et al.,
1983). The slate rockfill embankment was built on a glacial
moraine, and the upstream asphaltic membrane was placed
over both the rockfill and the moraine, forming an impounding structure with a total height of 72 m. Beneath the
inspection gallery at the upstream toe a grout curtain
extends to a maximum depth of 120 m. First filling of the
reservoir was completed in December 1982. BRE developed
an inclinometer to measure deflection of the 1 in 2 upstream
slope during reservoir impounding (Penman & Hussain,
1984).
Roadford Dam in south-west England has an upstream
asphaltic concrete membrane that forms the watertight element (Duncanson & Johnston, 1988). The embankment was
built of low-grade sandstone and mudstone rockfill, which
was excavated by face shovel loaders assisted by a ripper

(Wilson & Evans, 1990). The rockfill was placed at a

relatively low water content (Table 5). Both upstream and
downstream slopes are 1 in 2.25. Sandfill was placed next to
the inspection gallery at the upstream toe of the dam to
reduce differential settlement at this critical location. Impounding commenced in October 1989, and first filling of
the reservoir was completed in April 1991. The deflection of
the upstream membrane was measured during reservoir
impounding using electro-levels installed by BRE (Tedd et
al., 1995).

Construction deformations
The compressibility of the rockfill materials was measured
in tests on samples heavily compacted in layers in 0.6 m and
1.0 m diameter oedometers. Rockfill with a maximum particle size of 125 mm was tested in the 1.0 m diameter
oedometer. Fig. 18 shows that the compressibilities of the
rockfills from Brianne, Scammonden and Winscar dams
were quite similar, but the gravel fill from Megget was much
less compressible.
Settlement occurs during rockfill placement owing to the
self-weight of the fill. The vertical strains measured in the
downstream rockfill shoulders at Brianne, Scammonden and
Winscar were quite similar, since the compressibility of the
rockfills measured in oedometer tests were not very different. The deformations at Megget were much smaller, because the gravel fill was much less compressible. This
difference is illustrated in Fig. 19, which shows the settlement during embankment construction on the centreline of
the Scammonden, Winscar and Megget dams. Brianne is not
included in the figure because the maximum construction
settlement of 2.3 m was principally a function of the behaviour of the soft central clay core, not of the rockfill
shoulders (Carlyle, 1973); the constructional horizontal
movements at Brianne induced by the lateral pressure from
the soft clay core at the interface between the clay core and
the granular filter are shown in Fig. 20.
Although the vertical strains at Brianne, Scammonden and
Winscar were quite similar, with a maximum of 34%
compression (Fig. 21), the pattern of horizontal strain at the
dams was very different. The horizontal strains shown in
Fig. 22 are for the upstream-downstream direction; horizontal strain along the axis of the dams was not measured. The
clay cores at Brianne and Scammonden were placed wet of
optimum water content and had high pore water pressures
and low effective stresses during construction. At the end of

Vertical stress: kPa

500
1000

1500

Vertical strain: %

552

4
W

Fig. 18. Compressibility of rockfills measured in large oedometer: B, Brianne slatey mudstone; M, Megget gravel; S,
Scammonden sandstone; W, Winscar sandstone

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

553

10

h/H

4
(a)

05

S
Me

W
1

2
3
3
0

05
Settlement: m

(b)

10

Fig. 19. Construction settlement against height on centreline of

Megget, Scammonden and Winscar dams (after Charles &
Penman, 1988): h/H, ratio of height above foundation level to
maximum height of embankment

1
2

4
(c)

Top of
embankment

Fig. 21. Contours of constructional vertical

(a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c) Winscar

strain

(%):

80
70
60
50
40

03
Downstream movement
Settlement

04
05
06

03 02

01

30
(a)

20
10
Base of
0
embankment 0

05
10
Movement: m
(a)

15

05
10
Movement: m
(b)

01

01

construction both dams had a pore pressure ratio (ru u/h)

as high as 0.7 at some locations in their cores. The clay
cores were much less stiff than the rockfill shoulders, and
the differences in embankment behaviour can be attributed
largely to the positions of the clay cores (Penman & Charles,
1973c; Charles, 1975). The horizontal strains show the major
influence of the lateral thrust of the soft central clay core on
the whole of the downstream shoulder at Brianne, with a
maximum compression of a little more than 0.6%, and the
much more limited effect of the upstream sloping core on
the downstream rockfill at Scammonden owing to the width
of the crest and the upstream location of the clay core. At
Winscar virtually the whole embankment cross-section has
negative horizontal strain (i.e. extension), with a maximum
of just over 0.4% in the centre of the embankment (Penman
et al., 1982).

02

02

Fig. 20. Construction movements at (a) core/fine filter interface

and (b) downstream slope at Brianne dam (after Penman &
Charles, 1973b)

0
(b)

02
04

0
(c)

Fig. 22. Contours of constructional horizontal strain (%):

(a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c) Winscar

The stressstrain properties of rockfills measured in onedimensional compression tests are generally non-linear, but
the internal distribution of settlement during embankment
construction can be predicted with little error using a
constant equivalent compressibility, and the maximum settlement occurring during construction can be related to the
constrained modulus (D). Assuming that a large-diameter

CHARLES

554

oedometer test accurately represents the one-dimensional

compressibility of the fill in the field, for fill placed over a
wide area, it can readily be shown that (Charles, 1976,
1990)

280

U
E

For D a constant DH :
!
2

H
smax 0:25
D H

(3)

260

smax

H2
0:195
D H

!
(4)

where smax is the maximum settlement during construction

of an embankment of height H, is the bulk unit weight of
the fill, and D H is the secant-constrained modulus for a
vertical stress
v H. Fig. 23 shows that the measured
values of smax have mostly closely corresponded to equation
(4), which therefore can be used to give an initial prediction
of construction settlement. This approach works reasonably
well because stress changes during construction generally
correspond to an increase in mean effective stress while the
principal effective stress ratio remains roughly constant, but
during reservoir impounding stress changes are much more
complex.

Post-construction deformations
Subsequent to the construction of a rockfill dam, movements will occur because of

10
S

smax: m

W
Eqn (4)

R
M
0

3
H 2/DH: m

B
220

200

100

200

Settlement during reservoir impounding: mm

(a)

Movements monitored during reservoir impounding illustrate the determining influence of the position and nature of
the watertight element within the embankment. At Brianne
the continuing settlement of the crest was largely a function
of the behaviour of the central clay corethat is, primary
consolidation due to dissipation of excess pore pressures
followed by secondary compression. The upstream fill was
submerged during impounding, thus reducing the effective
stresses within the fill. While in theory this should cause the
rockfill to undergo a slight expansion or heave, in practice
any small creep movements or collapse compression will
negate such a tendency. Fig. 24(a) shows that the points
labelled U on the upstream slope settled a very similar
amount to monuments E and F on the downstream slope
during reservoir impounding, indicating that the rockfill had

Eqn (3)

C
240

(a) stress changes associated with reservoir impounding

(b) consolidation of a clay core
(c) creep compression in the rockfill.

05

Elevation: m AOD

For D k(
v )0 5 :

Fig. 23. Maximum measured construction settlement, smax , as a

function of constrained modulus of rockfill derived from large
oedometer test, D H : M, Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammonden; W, Winscar

F
U

E
D
C
B
A

(b)

Fig. 24. Settlement during first filling of reservoir at Brianne

dam (after Charles, 1987)

little if any collapse potential. The location of these surface

settlement stations is shown in Fig. 24(b).
Because of its wide crest and upstream-sloping clay core,
much of the rockfill at Scammonden was not significantly
affected by either reservoir impounding or consolidation of
the clay core. The approximately linear relationship between
settlement and time elapsed since construction plotted on a
logarithmic scale is shown in Fig. 25 for different heights on
the centreline of the dam. The line marked c represents the
settlement of the crest of the dam, which corresponds to a
value of 0.17% for the full height of the embankment.
Where an embankment dam has a central flexible diaphragm of asphaltic concrete, reservoir impounding submerges the upstream fill, decreasing the vertical effective
stress, but the total horizontal pressure acting on the membrane increases. At Megget it was found that the increase in
horizontal thrust due to reservoir impounding was 0.29w hw ,
where w is the density of water and hw is the reservoir

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Settlement: mm

100

h/H

200

300
01

025

064

100

1
Time since end of construction: years

10

Fig. 25. Long-term settlement on the centreline of Scammonden

dam (after Charles, 1990): h/H, ratio of height above foundation
to maximum height of embankment

head at the location where the horizontal stress was measured. However, as shown in Fig. 26, the downstream deflection of the asphaltic diaphragm was very small owing to the
stiffness of the gravel fill.
At dams with upstream membranes the reservoir water
applies a loading normal to the membrane. First filling of
the reservoir causes major stress increases and embankment
deformations. Subsequent fluctuations in reservoir level affect the stresses in the rockfill in a similar way, but have a
smaller effect on embankment deformations, as the rockfill
is much stiffer under these reloading and unloading stresses.
When the water load is transmitted to the rockfill immediately beneath an upstream membrane the mean effective

C4

555

stress increases, but the principal effective stress ratio tends

to reduce. The modulus during first filling of the reservoir is
typically almost twice as large as that operating during
construction owing to the change in principal stress direction
during these two phases of loading.
Deformations due to first filling of the reservoir have been
monitored at three dams with upstream asphaltic membranes: Winscar, Roadford and Marchlyn. At Winscar the
movements, which were measured using horizontal plate
gauges, are shown in Fig. 27(a). The maximum deflection
during first filling was 0.2 m at just below half the height of
the dam. The maximum compressive strain normal to the
membrane was 1% near the toe of the dam (Fig. 27(b)).
Elastic finite element analyses were used to predict deformations during reservoir impounding with rockfill parameters,
based on the assumption that the bulk modulus had the same
magnitude during reservoir filling as it had during embankment construction, and Poissons ratio was zero. Assuming
Poissons ratio to be 0.33 during construction, elastic theory
led to the conclusion that the constrained modulus during
impounding was twice as large as that during embankment
construction (Charles & Penman, 1988). This approach gave
reasonable predictions of movements normal to the upstream
membrane except close to the crest of the embankment.
Deformations at the toe of an embankment can damage
an upstream asphaltic membrane, and the deflection of the
upstream membrane was measured during reservoir impounding near the toe of Roadford Dam using an electrolevel system (Evans & Wilson, 1994; Tedd et al., 1995).
Prior to reservoir impounding, the deflection of the membrane was estimated from the compressibility of the fill
materials measured in large oedometer tests. The analysis
was based on assumptions similar to those used for the
analysis of Winscar, except that, using a Poissons ratio of
the rockfill during construction of 0.25, the ratio of constrained modulus during impounding to that during construction was 1.67. The measured and predicted deflections
normal to the upstream membrane are shown in Fig. 28.
There is some correlation between the maximum deflection of an upstream membrane during first filling of the
reservoir (nmax ) and the maximum settlement during embankment construction (smax ), as demonstrated in Fig. 29 by
the monitored behaviour of some international concrete face
rockfill dams (Charles & Penman, 1988) and three asphaltic
concrete upstream membrane dams where BRE made observations. At Roadford the measurements of membrane deflec-

B5

18
0

16

120

100
80

140

Movement
scale

60

40

20

(a)
0

50 mm

A6

02
04
06
10

08
02

(b)

Fig. 26. Vector movements at Megget dam during reservoir

impounding (after Penman & Charles, 1985b)

Fig. 27. Movements during reservoir impounding at Winscar

dam: (a) movement normal to upstream asphaltic concrete
membrane (mm); (b) strain normal to upstream asphaltic
concrete membrane (%)

CHARLES

556
Rockfill
14 m
18 box sections housing E-Ls
8 at 05 m long
10 at 10 m long
Drainage layer
Sand waste

Dis

tan

ce

fro

:m
10

12

oe
mt

14
1

4
2
0
0
20

Predicted deflection

m
:m

40

60
D

c
efle

tion

Date

Res head: m

1 November 1989
2 April 1991
3 July 1994

80

146
33 (full)
32

100
120

Fig. 28. Deflection of upstream asphaltic concrete membrane

during reservoir impounding at Roadford dam (after Tedd et
al., 1995)

02
W

nmax: m

01

The settlement of the crests of Brianne, Megget, Scammonden and Winscar dams has been monitored for long
periods following the end of construction. In Fig. 30 the
data are plotted as vertical strain. The vertical strain at
Brianne is twice as large as that at Scammonden and
Winscar, reflecting the fact that at Brianne the consolidation
of the clay core is the dominant effect. At Winscar the extra
loading during reservoir impounding was a significant factor:
the increased rate of settlement that occurred between six
and a half years and nine years after the end of construction
was associated with the first full filling of the reservoir in
19811982 after it had been emptied in 1980 for membrane
repairs. At Scammonden the consolidation of the clay core
had only a minor effect on crest settlement.
Quite large crest settlement continued at a reasonably
constant rate for some time after reservoir impounding at
Roadford, with no sign of the steady reduction in settlement
rate observed at the other four dams. This additional settlement has been attributed to an increase in water content in
the embankment fill (Evans & Wilson, 1992). The crest
settlement rate eventually reduced with time (Hopkins et al.,
2002); nevertheless, by May 2001 the crest had settled
535 mm since the end of construction, of which 425 mm
had occurred since impounding began, corresponding to
vertical strains of 1.3% and 1.0% respectively, which is
surprisingly large. Vaughan (1994a) estimated that a little
more than 1% collapse compression had occurred at a slow
rate.
Figure 31 shows the compressibility of two samples of
Roadford rockfill measured in tests in a 1 m diameter
oedometer. The properties of the two samples are given in
Table 6. Sample a was heavily compacted at a relatively
high water content, and sample b was less heavily compacted at a lower water content. Until sample b was
inundated the compressibility of the two samples was not
dissimilar, but when sample b was inundated a collapse
compression of 2.6% occurred. Sample a was not inundated, but as the initial air voids were only about 4% there
would not have been any collapse potential. The two dashed
lines for sample b on the figure give estimates of the
behaviour of sample b if it was not inundated at all and if
it was inundated before any load was applied. The initial
density and water content of sample b were close to the
average field values (Table 6).
In Fig. 32 the crest settlement data for the five dams are
plotted using a logarithmic timescale. There is generally a

uam
cf
Ma

Time since end of construction: years

5
10
15

20

0
05
smax: m

Fig. 29. Relationship between maximum normal deflection of

upstream membrane during reservoir first filling, nmax , and
maximum settlement during embankment construction, smax
(after Charles, 1990): uam, upstream asphaltic membrane; cf,
concrete face; Ma, Marchlyn; R, Roadford; W, Winscar

tion went only part way up the upstream slope: the hollow
circle in Fig. 29 represents the maximum measured deflection, and the solid circle is the estimated maximum deflection on the assumption that the deflected shape of the
membrane at Roadford was similar to that measured at
Winscar. The dashed line on the graph corresponds to a ratio
of nmax /smax 0.25, which would be expected if the constrained modulus controlling the deformation due to reservoir impounding was about twice as large as the modulus
controlling construction settlement.

02

s/H: %

S
04

06

B
R

08

Fig. 30. Post-construction long-term settlement of crests of

dams: B, Brianne; M, Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammonden;
W, Winscar; s, crest settlement; H, height of embankment

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Vertical stress: MPa
05
10

15

Vertical strain: %

a
5

b
Inundation
10

Fig. 31. Compressibility of Roadford rockfill measured in 1 m

diameter oedometer

Table 6. Properties of Roadford rockfill in 1 m diameter

oedometer tests and in the field

Test a
Test b
Field

rd : Mg/m3

w: %

n: %

Va: %

2.16
2.05
2.07

7.9
4.7
4.4

21
25
24

4
15
15

rd , dry density of fill; w, water content; n, porosity; Va , percentage

air voids.

05
0

Time since end of construction: years

5
10
1
2

20
M

557

linear relationship between vertical strain and log time for

Brianne, Megget, Scammonden and Winscar dams. This type
of relationship has been obscured at Roadford by ongoing
collapse compression.
The creep behaviour of rockfill can be evaluated in detail
from the internal deformation measurements made using the
horizontal plate gauge system. At Scammonden much less
than one third of the long-term compression of the embankment is located in the top third of the embankment (Fig.
25). Stress dependence of creep settlement is explored in
Fig. 33, where the measured distribution of long-term settlement with height within the embankments at Scammonden
and Winscar is compared with what would be expected if
(a) was a constant and not dependent on vertical stress, or
(b) was proportional to vertical stress. The results are
generally closer to the latter assumption than to the former.

Conclusions
Field measurements have confirmed that carefully controlled placement and compaction can produce rockfills with
relatively uniform geotechnical properties and predictable
behaviour. The case histories go some way towards establishing benchmarks for normal behaviour of different types of
rockfill dam. The monitored movements give a good indication of the deformations likely to occur during successive
stages in the life of a rockfill dam, and substantial departures from such behaviour in a dam could indicate the onset
of unsatisfactory behaviour.
Although rockfill behaviour is not elastic and not linear,
movements during embankment construction can be predicted using simple linear elastic models. The limiting factor
in making such predictions is not the sophistication of the
soil model used in the calculations, but rather the difficulty
of establishing representative soil parameters for a fill material containing large rock fragments. Movements during
10

02

Scammonden
Winscar

04

s/H: %

06

08

Height above foundation

Heigth of crest above foundation

W
Uniform creep rate

05

10
Creep rate
proportional to
vertical stress
12

14

Fig. 32. Post-construction long-term settlement of crests of dams

with time plotted on a logarithmic scale; B, Brianne; M,
Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammonden; W, Winscar; s, crest
settlement; H, height of embankment

0
0

05
Long-term settlement
Long-term crest settlement

10

Fig. 33. Creep rate of sandstone rockfill at Scammonden and

Winscar dams as a function of vertical stress

CHARLES

558

reservoir impounding require more sophisticated analysis,

since the loading applied to the dam by the reservoir water
causes rotation of the direction of principal stress. Case
histories that include long-term monitoring provide the only
satisfactory basis for validating numerical models.
Heavy compaction greatly reduces the compressibility,
deformability and creep movements of rockfills, but the
entire elimination of collapse potential may also require
appropriate watering of the fill. Heavily compacted rockfills
of different geological origin may have very similar behaviour, but heavily compacted gravel fill was much less
compressible than the sedimentary rockfills.
Post-construction deformations of rockfill dams occur
from a variety of causes, including reservoir loading, clay
core consolidation and creep of the fill materials. Deformations examined at different depths in regions of the embankments not seriously affected by reservoir fluctuations, and
where the fill had no collapse potential, show that creep
compression increased linearly with the logarithm of time
since the end of construction. The creep compression rate
parameter is stress dependent for these heavily compacted
fills.

EFFECTIVENESS OF GROUND TREATMENT

Where opencast backfill has been compacted in a manner
similar to that used in the construction of rockfill dams, the
ground so formed usually should be suitable for building
development. However, building development is often proposed on restored opencast mining sites where the fill has
not been systematically compacted. The backfill could be
excavated, any unsuitable material discarded and the remainder put back as an engineered fill to a suitable specification
under close supervision (Trenter & Charles, 1998). However,
where the fill is deep this approach is unlikely to be either
economic or practicable, and piled foundations are also
unlikely to be an economic solution for low-rise buildings
(Charles & Burland, 1982; Charles, 2005).
The question therefore arises as to the extent to which in
situ ground treatment can convert a non-engineered opencast
mining backfill into an engineered fill with suitable properties for buildings on shallow foundations. A closely connected question relates to the depth to which in situ
densification methods applied at the ground surface are
effective.

Evidence-based ground treatment

In the preface to the First Geotechnique Symposium in
Print, Ground treatment by deep compaction, the editors,
Burland, McKenna and Tomlinson (1975), referred to the

mystique surrounding ground treatment methods, commenting:

Nearly all the papers have been produced by contractors
specializing in these techniques and, not unnaturally, they
have concentrated on the successes obtained by their
methods. The failures, or at least the lack of apparent
successful applications, have remained unrecorded. The
result of this has been the growth of a certain mystique
surrounding the techniques, and claims have been made on
their ability to strengthen ground which cannot always be
substantiated when subjected to a critical review.
During the subsequent 30 years well-documented case histories have had a substantial role in dispelling much of the
mystique, but poorly documented case histories can be
misleading. Case histories where a filled site has been
subjected to a particular form of ground treatment and
subsequently used for building development can be easily
accumulated. The apparent absence of problems gives the
impression that an appropriate and adequate form of treatment has been applied. What is not known is how the
ground would have behaved if there had been no treatment.
Building development might have still been successful. In
some cases little may have been required from the ground
treatment and little may have been achieved. The problem
arises where much is needed from the treatment. With fill in
a metastable state, it will only be known whether the ground
treatment has adequately dealt with this when, say, water
from a leaking drain starts to saturate some of the fill.
A parallel can be drawn with medical practice. It may
seem surprising and indeed alarming that for centuries
physicians made life-and-death decisions concerning the
treatment of their patients on the basis of little, if any,
scientific evidence. It is only in the last 60 years that
evidence-based medicine has come to the fore using randomised controlled trials. Civil engineers do not usually have
the resources to carry out randomised controlled trials, but
well-documented case histories with appropriate long-term
monitoring provide an alternative route to establishing evidence-based ground treatment. A controlled trial of ground
treatment methods was carried out on the opencast ironstone
mining backfill at the Snatchill experimental site at Corby,
and some of the results are summarised in Table 7.
With low-rise building developments on opencast mining
backfills bearing capacity is unlikely to be a major problem,
and foundation design based solely on an allowable bearing
pressure will not address the principal hazard. Fig. 34 shows
settlements monitored at a housing development on clay fill
that had been treated by dynamic compaction at the Snatchill experimental site. The houses have experienced 50 mm
settlement over a period of 25 years. Ground adjacent to the

Table 7. Settlement of clay fill at Snatchill experimental site, Corby

Treatment

Settlement of
Settlement of houses (mm)
ground surface
induced by
During house Total during and after house
treatment: m
construction
construction to 1999
Mean

Preloading
Dynamic compactiony
Inundation{
No treatment

0.41
0.24
0.10

1.4
7.0
6.1
2.7

11
52
54
33

Maximum Minimum
25
74
149
53

 9 m high surcharge in position for one month.

15 t weight, base area of 4 m2 , dropped from 20 m, energy input 2800 kN/m2 .
Via 1 m deep trenches at 10 m centres.

5
23
30
14

300

10

559

10
5
0
0

May

June

July

August
10 m depth

30
40

Mean settlement of experimental

houses (measured at dpc level)

50

Mean settlement of adjacent ground

(measured 1 m below ground level)

Fig. 34. Long-term settlement of clay backfill following dynamic

compaction (after Charles & Watts, 2001)

houses, which is not loaded, has settled a comparable

amount, indicating that the settlement of the houses is
unrelated to the weight of the buildings, and can be attributed to creep compression under the self-weight of the fill.
Many of the geotechnical hazards for buildings on nonengineered fills are associated with volumetric compression
of the ground: therefore densification of the fill prior to
building is an appropriate form of ground treatment.
Although uncompacted fills have low shear strength and high
compressibility compared with the same fill in a heavily
compacted state, this will not be a problem in many
situations. An angle of shearing resistance of 408, typical of
a loose granular fill, is quite adequate for most purposes.
Compression of the fill under self-weight occurs as the fill is
placed, and low-rise housing applies only small extra loads
to the fill, so the greater compressibility of loose fill is of
little practical importance; the real need is for ground
treatment to convert a metastable fill into a stable fill.
Preloading
One of the most fundamental and simplest methods of
ground treatment is to consolidate the fill by temporary
preloading with a surcharge of fill prior to construction. Fills
are generally inelastic and strains are mostly non-recoverable: therefore, once the fill has been consolidated, it will
remain in that denser state, and its subsequent vulnerability
to volumetric compression and hence settlement will be
greatly reduced. Consolidation makes the ground much
stiffer under subsequent applied loads: in effect a normally
consolidated fill has been converted into an overconsolidated
fill, with all the improvement in soil properties that are
consequent on this change. The settlement of preloaded fill
due to the subsequent weight of a building will be very
small provided that the stresses applied to the fill by the
building foundations are, at every point within the fill,
smaller than the stresses previously applied by the surcharge.
The effect of preloading is illustrated by comparing the
behaviour of fill that had been temporarily preloaded by a
spoil heap during the opencast operation at Horsley at gauge
D1 (Fig. 10) with fill at gauge B2 that had not been
preloaded (Fig. 9). The settlement at gauge D1 was less than
one fifth of that at gauge B2. The large rise in groundwater
level produced very little settlement in the preloaded ground.
However, the spoil heap was 30 m high, which is far in
excess of what would be practicable or economic as a
ground treatment method in normal circumstances.
The surcharge trial on the clay backfill at the Snatchill
site gives a more realistic example of the effectiveness of
preloading as a ground treatment method. Fig. 35 shows the
rapid response of the clay fill to loading. This is because the
settlement of the fill was caused by the compression of air-

Settlement: mm

20

200
43 m depth

400

22 m depth

Surface
600

Fig. 35. Settlement of opencast backfill induced by 9 m high

surcharge at Snatchill experimental site, Corby (after Charles et
al., 1978)

filled macrovoids between lumps of clay, and not by the very

slow process of squeezing water out of the low-permeability
lumps of clay. There was little recovery on unloading.
Preloading from the ground surface has a limited depth of
effectiveness, and an indication of this depth for the temporary surcharge of fill at Corby is given in Fig. 36, which
indicates that the 9 m high surcharge had little or no effect
at depths greater than 9 to 10 m below ground level. The
heterogeneity of the backfill is demonstrated by the surface
settlement measured at the four settlement gauges, ranging
from 0.3 to 0.5 m. The depth of effectiveness (ze ) can be
defined as the depth to which significant vertical compression has been produced, and laboratory tests and the field
inundation trial indicated that a vertical compression of 2%
would significantly reduce the collapse potential of the fill.
Using this criterion, Fig. 37 shows that a 3 m high surcharge
is completely inadequate, and 5 to 6 m is the minimum
surcharge required to produce a significant improvement in
fill behaviour; a 6 m high surcharge was effective to 6 m
depth and a 9 m surcharge to 9 m depth.
Figure 38 suggests that for the normal range of surcharges
where the ratio of height to width of the surcharge (H/B) is
between 0.1 and 0.4, the ratio of depth of effectiveness to
height of surcharge (ze /H) is just over 1 (Charles et al.,
1986; Charles, 1996). This relationship is valid only where

Settlement: mm
200

400

600

Depth below ground level: m

Settlement subsequent to dynamic

compaction: mm

Height of fill: m

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Time since dynamic compaction: months
3
10
30
100

10

15

20

25

Fill
Bedrock

Fig. 36. Settlement of opencast backfill induced at four locations

by 9 m high surcharge at Snatchill experimental site, Corby
(after Charles et al., 1978)

CHARLES

560
0

Settlement: mm
200
400

Depth below ground level: m

3m

57 m

Vertical compression: %
4
2

9m
3m

57 m

9m

10

15

20

25

Fig. 37. Settlement of opencast backfill induced by 3 m, 5.7 m

and 9 m high surcharges at Snatchill experimental site, Corby

003
10

005

Hs/B
01

02

03

04 05

new fill with a new zero time, so the advantages conferred

by a reduction in are realised only in the long term. This
may explain why, at the Snatchill experimental site, houses
built on fill treated by dynamic compaction settled more
than houses on untreated fill (Table 7). Fig. 39 shows that
the creep settlement following dynamic compaction of two
quite different fill types was very similar, approximating to
0.5%.
Trials of both dynamic compaction and preloading were
carried out at the Snatchill experimental site. Dynamic
compaction was achieved by dropping a 15 t weight, with a
base area of 4 m2 , from a height of 20 m, with an average
energy input of 2800 kN/m2 . Dynamic compaction of the
clay backfill produced the same surface settlement as a
surcharge 5.7 m high, but the distribution of settlement with
depth was significantly different. Fig. 40 shows that the
compression of the near-surface fill was greater with dynamic compaction, but there was a much more clearly
defined depth below which the treatment had virtually no
effect on the fill.
Time since dynamic compaction: months
10
0

30

100

Mean settlement of houses

built on 24 m deep clay fill

Settlement: mm

ze/Hs

3
Mean settlement of 5 m deep
old refuse fill subsequent to
construction of 3 m high
embankment
20

05

the density of the surcharge is similar to the density of the

in situ fill.
The data presented in Table 7 illustrate the effectiveness
of surcharging the clay fill at Snatchill: the settlement of
houses built on untreated fill was about three times as great
as the settlement of houses built on clay fill that had been
subjected to a 9 m high temporary surcharge. However,
inadequate performance of poorly compacted fill is most
likely to be associated with the metastable condition of the
fill, and the extent to which preloading will remove or
reduce collapse potential needs to be established when
adopting a particular form of ground treatment.
Dynamic compaction
The repeated dropping of a heavy weight onto the ground
surface is one of the most basic methods of compacting
loose, partially saturated fill. The development of heavy civil
engineering plant has made dynamic compaction practical
on a large scale. The effectiveness of this treatment method
has been monitored by BRE at several filled sites (Charles
et al., 1981). Although dynamic compaction will reduce the
creep compression rate parameter , it effectively creates a

40

Fig. 39. Long-term settlement following dynamic compaction

(after Charles & Burland, 1982)

Settlement: mm
0

100

200

300

Dynamic
compaction

Depth below ground level: m

Fig. 38. Effectiveness of preloading fills (after Charles, 1996):

H, height of surcharge; B, width of surcharge; ze , depth of
effectiveness; , unit weight of treated fill; s , unit weight of
surcharge fill

5
57 m surcharge

10

Fig. 40. Comparison of settlement induced in clay fill by

dynamic compaction and 5.7 m high surcharge

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

Grouting
Since both preloading with a temporary surcharge of fill
and dynamic compaction will be effective only in the upper
zone of a deep fill, there remains a residual risk associated
with collapse potential in the lower part of the fill, where a
rising groundwater level could trigger collapse compression.
The magnitude of the risk will depend on the hydrogeology
of the site as well as the magnitude of the collapse potential
of the fill. With the closure of so many coal mines in Great
Britain this is a significant hazard in some areas, and studies
of groundwater rebound have been carried out for the South
Yorkshire coalfield (Burke & Younger, 2000; Dumpleton et
al., 2001). Smyth-Osbourne & Mizon (1984) have described
how a single-storey factory built on opencast backfill in
Durham suffered damaging settlement when pumping associated with deep mining in the area ceased and groundwater
levels rose, inundating the bottom of the backfill.
In the light of this hazard, alternative forms of ground
treatment that can be effective at much greater depths may
have to be considered. Vibrated stone columns could allow
surface water to be introduced into the fill at depth, and may
therefore be unsuitable. BRE is currently investigating the
use of grout injection to stabilise fill at specified depths by
filling the voids that would collapse on inundation with
inexpensive particulate grout. Laboratory studies have suggested that a simple PFA/water grout injected into loose
colliery waste samples will induce collapse compression,
thereby eliminating or significantly reducing subsequent collapse potential. Full-scale field trials in a deep opencast
mudstone/shale backfill have confirmed that grouting induces
collapse, but some residual potential may remain. The addition of cement to the grout could significantly reduce the
creep settlement induced by the treatment over the lifetime
of a building development.
Conclusions
While densifying a fill should lead to a general improvement in load-carrying characteristics such as increased stiffness, strength and bearing capacity, the critical hazard is
likely to be that loose fill is in a metastable condition and
vulnerable to large ground movements associated with phenomena such as collapse compression on inundation. The
answer to the question Can a non-engineered opencast
mining backfill placed without controlled systematic compaction be converted into an engineered fill with suitable
properties for building development by in situ ground treatment? therefore depends primarily on the extent to which
ground treatment can convert a metastable fill into a stable
fill and eliminate or at least greatly reduce the vulnerability
to collapse compression.
Ground treatment of non-engineered fills should be implemented in a rational context in which the required ground
behaviour for a particular use of the ground is defined, likely
deficiencies in fill behaviour are identified, and appropriate
treatment is designed and implemented to remedy those
deficiencies. Correct diagnosis of the problem is the essential
first step. Well-documented case histories of ground treatment provide essential data for the adoption of evidencebased ground treatment. Poorly documented case histories,
where little is known except that no problems have yet been
reported, may give a misleading impression of the effectiveness of ground treatment.
Those forms of ground treatment that are applied at the
ground surface will be effective to only a limited depth:
neither preloading nor dynamic compaction as normally
implemented is likely to have much effect at depths greater
than 10 m below ground level, and in many cases they may
have a much more restricted depth of effectiveness. While

561

ground treatment can be an effective risk mitigation measure, there may be some residual risk, for example inundation of untreated fill at depth in a deep fill due to a rising
groundwater level, which can occur when pumping associated with deep mining ceases.

CONDITION ASSESSMENT OF EMBANKMENT DAMS

With ageing infrastructure, condition assessment will increasingly require the attention and skills of geotechnical
engineers (Johnston et al., 1999; Perry et al., 2001). Such
assessments can raise many difficult questions. Is a record of
previous good behaviour and the absence of any obvious
signs of distress a sufficient guarantee of future satisfactory
performance? Can the safety of an old embankment dam
built without any knowledge of modern soil mechanics, and
for which few construction records have survived, be reliably
assessed without an intrusive site investigation? The careful
design of a new dam may eliminate many hazardsfor
example, appropriate filter design may prevent or halt internal erosionbut, with an old water-retaining structure, it
may be difficult to assess whether the structure is vulnerable
to internal erosion.

Reservoir safety in Great Britain

Most British embankment dams were built before the
development of modern soil mechanics, and many of them
date back to the nineteenth century. The vast majority of
these old embankment dams were built to a traditional
design with a central narrow puddle clay core (Skempton,
1989). A typical cross-section is shown in Fig. 41. Most
attention was given to the puddle clay, which was prepared
by adding water to form a very soft clay fill with an
undrained shear strength of only about 10 kPa. At this low
strength, clay layers 0.15 to 0.2 m thick could be successfully compacted by heeling in. Much less attention and
much less compaction were given to the general embankment fill in the supporting shoulders.
The 29 m high Dale Dyke puddle clay core embankment
dam failed on 11 March 1864 during first filling of the
reservoir. The reservoir was almost at top water level when
the embankment breached, and the catastrophic release of
the impounded water caused the Great Sheffield Flood in
which 244 lives were lost and much property was destroyed.
Despite a thorough investigation by Robert Rawlinson, the
governments chief engineering inspector (Rawlinson &
Beardmore, 1864), the cause of the failure has continued to
be disputed (Binnie, 1978).
The Dale Dyke disaster led to some loss of confidence in
this form of dam construction. The thoughts of Major Hector
Tulloch, who later succeeded Rawlinson as the chief engineering inspector of the Local Government Board, turned to
masonry dams, and he wrote to Professor Rankine: I consider the fact of the puddle wall in the middle of the dam
being virtually all the resistance that the dam can bring to
bear against the water, renders all our dams far too weak.
Selected fine material
Top water level
1

Puddle clay core

25
1
Embankment fill
(as excavated)

Natural ground
Puddle-clay-filled cut-off
trench

Fig. 41. Typical cross-section of an old puddle clay core

embankment dam (after Charles & Watts, 1987)

CHARLES

562

In his reply Rankine stressed the importance of the foundation, which should be sound rock, if practicable, and should
a rock foundation be unobtainable, firm impervious earth.
He added that It may be doubted whether any earthen
foundation is thoroughly to be relied on where the depth of
water exceeds 100 or 120 feet. Rankine also warned Tulloch
that It is not advisable to build a masonry dam on an
earthen foundation (Tulloch, 1872).
The response of the legislature to the 1864 disaster was
not rapid, and it took further loss of life occasioned by two
dam failures in 1925 to renew concerns about reservoir
safety (Charles, 2002). The 1930 Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act imposed a safety regime requiring an inspection
of large raised reservoirs by a qualified civil engineer,
known as the inspecting engineer, at intervals not exceeding
10 years. The 1975 Reservoirs Act introduced the additional
role of the supervising engineer, who, unlike the inspecting
engineer, has a continuous responsibility for the reservoir.
The term inspection was retained in the 1975 legislation,
but condition assessment or safety evaluation would have
given a better indication of what is required.
Surveillance and monitoring form important elements in
the safety management of old embankment dams. Careful
visual observations by personnel familiar with an embankment dam are a critical element now that most British dams
no longer have the benefit of a resident reservoir keeper.
Leakage measurement and settlement of the crest of the
embankment are the most common forms of routine monitoring. A sudden large increase in leakage is likely to give
a clear indication of the hazardous development of internal
erosion, but the significance of an increase in the rate of
settlement of the crest of the embankment is less easy to
assess.
Surface settlement and horizontal displacement can be
measured using precise surveying techniques, but in most
cases optical levelling is the simplest and most reliable way
of monitoring crest settlement. Table 8 provides information
on several old embankment dams where BRE has carried
out long-term measurements of crest settlement. The measurement of internal displacements in existing dams requires
the installation of relatively complex and expensive instrumentation in vertical boreholes: magnet extensometers have
been used for measuring vertical displacements, and inclinometers for measuring horizontal displacements. The monitoring of piezometric pressures in the fill forms an
important part of a detailed investigation, and requires
intrusive borings.

Crest settlement
A critical question relates to whether or not movements,
measured in some cases more than 100 years after the
construction of a dam, are due to an incipient malfunction
that could lead to failure if remedial action is not taken.

Embankment movements may be caused by deleterious

processes such as internal erosion or slope instability, but in
many cases they are due to generally benign or innocuous
processes such as the secondary compression of the core,
creep of the shoulder fill, volume change in puddle clay due
to seasonal water content variations, and stress changes
associated with fluctuations in reservoir level during normal
operation.
Settlement will occur for many years after the completion
of construction owing to secondary consolidation of the core
and creep of the more granular shoulder fill, which can be
described by a settlement index, given by
SI

s
H log t2 =t1

(5)

where s is the crest settlement measured between times t1

and t2 since the completion of the embankment at a section
of the dam of height H.
There is a close correspondence between SI and , the
creep compression rate parameter. At two dams where the
reservoirs were no longer used for water supply, and which
were kept full over several years, it was found that SI
0.8% at Challacombe and SI 0.9% at Cwmwernderi (Table
9). It was proposed that where SI . 2% the likelihood of
some mechanism in addition to creep causing the settlement
should be seriously considered (Charles, 1986).
Movements much greater than creep settlement can be
caused by changes in reservoir level, and the pattern and
magnitude of deformations on reservoir drawdown depend
on the position of the watertight element. Lowering the
reservoir level causes an increase in vertical effective stress
in the more permeable upstream fill of an old puddle clay
core dam, with resulting settlement. The effect of reservoir
level changes on the clay core is complex. Lowering the
reservoir level reduces the lateral pressure on the upstream
side of the core and leads to immediate upstream horizontal
movement and settlement of the core as the core deforms
under undrained conditions. Removal of the water from the
upstream side of the core also changes the drainage conditions and allows consolidation and time-dependent settlement
of the clay core. On refilling the reservoir, these effects are
reversed. The crest settlement of an old puddle clay core
dam, Ramsden, caused by completely emptying the reservoir
is illustrated in Fig. 42. It is seen that fully emptying the
reservoir causes a disproportionately large settlement.
Simple models of the upstream fill can be used to predict
settlement patterns during reservoir drawdown, as shown in
Fig. 43, which illustrates the major influence of the position
of the watertight element. The increase in vertical effective
stress in the upstream fill of a dam with a central puddle
clay core, which occurs on emptying the reservoir, causes a
maximum settlement at the crest of the dam; in contrast,
emptying the reservoir of a dam with an impermeable
membrane on the upstream slope causes a decrease in water

Table 8. Crest settlement monitored at old embankment dams

Dam

Date
built

H: m

Watertight
element

Holmestyes
Ogden
Yateholme
Ramsden
Cwmwernderi
Walshaw Dean Lower
Challacombe

1840
1858
1872
1892
1901
1907
1945

25
25
17
25
22
22
15

ucb
cpcc
cpcc
cpcc
cpcc
cpcc
cpcc

Foundation cut-off

Shallow puddle clay

Shallow puddle clay
Concrete
Concrete
Shallow puddle clay
Deep puddle clay
Concrete

H, height of embankment; ucb, upstream clay blanket; cpcc, central puddle clay core.

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

563

Table 9. Settlement index for some embankment dams

Dam

Date
built

H: m

Type and position

of watertight
element

Measurement
period

SI : %

Megget
Scammonden
Brianne
Challacombe
Cwmwernderi
Holmestyes

1981
1969
1971
1945
1901
1840

56
73
90
15
22
25

cac
urcc
crcc
cpcc
cpcc
ucb

19811996
19691989
19711992
19811989
19811989
19922001

0.02
0.17
0.36
0.8
0.9
2.7

cac, central asphaltic core; cpcc, central puddle clay core; crcc, central rolled clay core;
ucb, upstream clay blanket; urcc, upstream rolled clay core; H, height of embankment; SI ,
settlement index.

1988

1989

1990

Reservoir level:
m below crest

0
5
10
15
Empty
20

185 m

Settlement: mm

20

126 m

40

65 m
60
Crest
80

Fig. 42. Influence of reservoir drawdown on settlement of crest

of Ramsden dam and at different depths within the puddle clay
core (after Tedd et al., 1997b)

Settlement units ( )H 2

028

05

D
0 013

pressure with consequent heave of the upstream slope, with

a maximum value halfway down the slope and virtually no
movement at the crest. This pattern of behaviour assumes
that the upstream watertight element is fully effective, and
that reservoir level changes have no effect on pore water
pressures in the upstream fill. Fig. 44 presents the same
information in terms of the vertical movements induced on
the upstream slope for partial as well as full reservoir
drawdown, assuming a constrained modulus of 100 MPa for
the upstream fill. It should not be forgotten that in certain
circumstances rapid drawdown could cause upstream slope
instability.
Monitoring of crest settlement has an important role in
assessing the long-term performance and safety of embankment dams, and in collaboration with Yorkshire Water BRE
carried out a programme of field studies to investigate the
effects of operational cycles of reservoir drawdown and
refilling on embankment deformations (Tedd et al., 1990,
1994, 1997a, 1997b). Complementary analytical work was
carried out at Imperial College (Kovacevic et al., 1997).
The crest settlements monitored during reservoir drawdown at a dam with a central puddle clay core, Walshaw
Dean Lower, and a dam with an upstream clay blanket,
Holmestyes, are plotted in Fig. 45, and a large difference in
behaviour is apparent (Tedd et al., 2002); settlement at
Walshaw Dean Lower is much greater and influenced by
reservoir drawdown to a much larger extent than as predicted by the simple models.
Figure 46 shows settlement as a function of depth of
drawdown for the puddle clay core embankment dams in the
Displacement 30 mm
scale

(0%)

TWL

(50%)
50%

100%

25 m

(100%)
(a)
Heave units wH
D

(a)
0

(0%)

019 0
025

(50%)
100%

019 0

TWL

25 m
50%

(100%)
(b)

Fig. 43. Vertical movements in upstream shoulder during

reservoir drawdown for dams with watertight element (after
Charles, 1993): (a) in centre of embankment; (b) on upstream
slope

(b)

Fig. 44. Vertical movements of upstream slope during reservoir

drawdown for dams with watertight element (after Tedd et al.,
1997b): (a) in centre of embankment; (b) on upstream slope (:
calculated displacement of upstream slope)

CHARLES

Drawdown depth: m

564
Jan
1990
0

Jan
1994

Jan
1998

Jan
2002

Nov
1991

Nov
1995

Nov
1999

10

20

Crest settlement: mm

25

50

75
(a)

(b)

Fig. 45. Monitored crest settlement during reservoir drawdown of dams with watertight element (after Tedd et al.,
2002): (a) Walshaw Dean Lower, central puddle clay core; (b) Holmestyles, upstream clay blanket

drawdown depends on the unloadingreloading moduli of

the fill materials, and the results of an oedometer test on
typical upstream fill with major and minor unloading
reloading cycles are shown in Fig. 47. One contributory
cause of the disproportionately large increase in settlement

06

05

Strain: %

04
sm /H

32

50

Vertical stress: kPa

100

150

200

03

Initial
loading

02
34
sp /H
01

00

10
15
Drawdown depth: m

20

25

Fig. 46. Mean vertical strain as a function of depth of drawdown for old puddle clay core embankment dams in BRE
Yorkshire Water study (after Tedd et al., 1997b): sm , maximum
settlement; sp , permanent settlement; sr , recovered settlement;
H, embankment height

BREYorkshire Water monitoring programme (Tedd et al.,

1997b). Further data published by Tedd et al. (2002) confirmed the general pattern of drawdown behaviour. Settlements are large compared with those associated with creep,
and an analysis of the settlement of puddle core dams that
ignores the effect of reservoir drawdown could lead to the
diagnosis of a problem where none exists. However, it could
be questioned whether the disproportionately large increase
in settlement with a major drawdown should be of concern.
The magnitude of the deformations produced by reservoir

Vertical strain: %

sr /H
B

36

Initial
unloading
D
38

40

Permanent
strain due to
4 major
reloading
unloading
cycles

A
First reloading
unloading cycle
C

Permanent
strain due to
4 minor
reloading
unloading
cycles

42

Fig. 47. Effect of minor and major unloadingreloading cycles

in oedometer test on mudstone fill from Ogden dam (after Tedd
et al., 1997b)

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

with a major drawdown is illustrated by the oedometer test
results. At a typical location within the upstream shoulder
close to the embankment centreline, A represents the vertical
stress at the end of construction of the embankment. The
decrease in effective stress due to the submergence of the
upstream shoulder on first filling the reservoir is represented
by the line AB. BC represents the complete emptying of the
reservoir and the consequent recovery of the vertical stress
at the end of construction. CD represents the refilling of the
reservoir. A study of the first major drawdown, BC, shows
that the modulus in the later stages of drawdown is very
much smaller than the modulus in the initial stage of drawdown, and hence much larger vertical movements can be
expected with a major drawdown, which is quite the opposite of what would be expected with a constant modulus, as
shown in Fig. 44.
Seepage, leakage and internal erosion
It would be misleading to conclude a review of the
application of case histories in the condition assessment of
embankment dams without some reference, however brief, to
their use in evaluating the threat posed by internal erosion,
which is at its greatest with the reservoir at top water level
when embankment failure is most likely to lead to a
catastrophic release of the impounded water.
A sudden rise in the seepage/leakage flow rate when the
reservoir reaches a particular level requires investigation,
and turbid water emerging from a dam is likely to signify
internal erosion, which may lead to a rapid deterioration of
the dam or its foundation. Fill materials exhibit a very wide
range of erosion resistance (Atkinson et al., 1990; Charles,
1997) and, consequently, leakage and associated internal
erosion have developed very differently at different dams.
Although dam failures are very rare in Great Britain, serious
incidents are by no means infrequent, and case histories of
failures and serious incidents provide valuable information
(Charles, 1989).
A study of case histories of European embankment dams
by a European Working Group of the International Commission on Large Dams found that in almost half the cases
where failure occurred, or would have occurred if the
reservoir level had not been rapidly drawn down, the problem was associated with a structure passing through the
embankment from upstream to downstream (Charles, 1998a,
2001). Rapid lowering of the reservoir level has been a
major factor in preventing the failure of a number of dams
in Europe and North America (Charles, 1998b). While this
aspect of reservoir safety is not a geotechnical issue, a better
understanding of the erodibility of fill materials would be of
great assistance in the safety evaluation of old embankment
dams.
Conclusions
The correct diagnosis of problems is critical in the condition assessment of old embankment dams. Since anomalous
movements may indicate the development of a hazardous
situation, it is important to know what constitutes normal
behaviour so that abnormal behaviour is identified at an
early stage and normal behaviour does not cause unnecessary alarm. A simple model of fill deformation has been
validated by careful field monitoring.
On reservoir drawdown, there is a major difference between the behaviour of a dam with a central watertight
element and a dam with an upstream watertight element.
Significant crest and upstream slope settlement of dams
with central clay cores can be expected when the reservoir
is lowered. The magnitude of the movement and the perma-

565

nent settlement on refilling depend on the depth of the

drawdown. Such settlements are unlikely to indicate any
threat to the stability of the dam, except that after many
years reservoir operation the lowered freeboard may need to
be restored. The changes in loading caused by reservoir
drawdown and refilling have little effect on the settlement of
the crest of dams with upstream membranes.
Where the failure of a major embankment dam would
present a substantial risk to public safety, carefully executed
long-term monitoring of leakage and settlement should form
a key element of the safety regime. When there is little or
no knowledge of the structure of the dam, or of the geotechnical properties of the embankment materials, a carefully
planned and adequately supervised intrusive ground investigation forms an important part of a credible safety evaluation.
A record of previous apparently good behaviour is not a
sufficient guarantee of future satisfactory performance. Internal erosion of the embankment fill or the foundation soils
remains the greatest threat to the safety of embankment
dams, and case histories of failures and serious incidents
provide one of the best guides to assessing the risk of this
hazard for an existing dam.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
For the foreseeable future, fill behaviour will be of increasing importance to the geotechnical engineer because of
the following developments:
(a) Urbanisation. An increasing proportion of the rapidly
increasing world population will live in large cities
where much of the ground will be fill.
(b) Land reclamation. Major schemes to reclaim land from
the sea, and from industrial and mining dereliction, will
involve large quantities of engineered fills.
(c) Mineral wastes. Billions of tonnes of solid waste will
be generated by industrial and mining activities every
year and deposited either as spoil heaps on the surface
of the ground or as waste dumps within excavations.
Some important aspects of fill behaviour have been highlighted by the case histories of field behaviour.
Poorly compacted non-engineered fills contrasted with
heavily compacted engineered fills
The principal difference between heavily compacted fill
placed under controlled conditions and the same fill placed
in a looser condition without much control is that in the
former state the fill will be relatively uniform and have
behaviour that is readily predicted on the basis of average
properties, whereas in the latter state there may be great
heterogeneity, and behaviour will be largely controlled by
zones where the fill is in a metastable condition. In this
latter state behaviour will be difficult to predict.
De Mello (1977) pointed out that geotechnical problems
can be divided into two categories, those amenable to analysis on the basis of average properties and those controlled
by extreme-value conditions, and he claimed that computations connected with the second group of problems were a
delusion! Building on an opencast mining backfill that has
been placed without systematic compaction in layers or,
indeed, any form of control presents problems that come in
the latter category, and the geotechnical engineer must
change the governing conditions, typically either by improving the metastable fill using an appropriate form of ground
treatment so that it becomes a stable fill with predictable
geotechnical behaviour, or by circumventing unpredictable
fill behaviour by the use of piles.

566

CHARLES

Vaughan (1994b) asserted that understanding real soil

behaviour is more important than accurate calculation, and
nowhere is this more true than with heterogeneous uncompacted fills, where collapse compression on inundation is
one of the most important features of field performance. The
successful application of geotechnical engineering to prediction requires realistic assumptions to be made, which have
been tested against monitored field behaviour.
Problems with fill behaviour mostly associated with water
As Terzaghi succinctly said in his 1939 James Forrest
lecture:
. . .. in engineering practice difficulties with soils are
almost exclusively due not to the soils themselves but to
the water contained in their voids. On a planet without any
water there would be no need for soil mechanics.
When a geotechnical engineer is exclusively focusing on
stress and strainthat is, on deformations resulting from
applied loadsit is well to remember that on a planet
without any water there would be no need, or at the very
least much less need, for soil mechanics! The principle of
effective stress shows that pore water pressure must be
considered in dealing with the relationship between stress
and strain in fills, but water has a greater significance than
this.
For buildings on non-engineered fill the risk of collapse
compression on inundation is normally the main concern,
since buildings may be seriously damaged. The corollary of
this is that the presence or absence of groundwater within a
non-engineered fill and the past and likely future changes in
groundwater level are of primary importance in assessing
the suitability of such a fill for building development. This
must be kept in mind when specifying the site investigation,
adopting a particular form of ground treatment, and designing foundations.
For fill dams the greatest hazard is usually internal
erosion. While much work has been carried out on the
design of filters for new dams, the hazard posed by internal
erosion in old dams is a comparatively neglected field. The
erosion of fill material by the flow of water requires much
more study.
Safety evaluation of embankment dams
In the developed world where there is an ageing infrastructure the assessment of existing structures, as opposed to
the design of new structures, will be of increasing importance to practising engineers. In this respect reservoir safety,
which in many countries is the subject of legislation
(Charles & Wright, 1996), has shown the way ahead.
Diagnosis of malfunctioning is at the heart of condition
assessment and safety evaluation of existing structures: this
is quite different from design, and can be more difficult. An
analogy with medicine is helpful: the general practitioner
may know a great deal about anatomy and physiology, but
how good is his diagnosis when confronted by a patient who
gives a garbled and potentially misleading account of his
symptoms? The practitioner needs more than just theory;
experience is required, and personal experience can be
greatly extended by studying case histories.
Is it reasonable to pronounce a Victorian embankment
dam to be safe, when little, if anything, is known about its
design and construction, simply on the basis that it has
survived for over 100 years and currently exhibits no
particular identifiable causes for concern? Where failure of
the dam and the consequent release of the reservoir water
pose a substantial risk to life and property some intrusive

investigation to determine the form of dam construction is

likely to be required to provide a credible basis for pronouncing that the dam does not form a significant threat to public
safety.
Relevance of research
In the first Rankine Lecture in 1961 Arthur Casagrande
quoted from Rankines inaugural address when he became
professor at the University of Glasgow in 1856. Rankine
distinguished between theoretical science and engineering in
the following manner: In theoretical science, the question
iswhat are we to think? . . . But in practical science the
question isWhat are we to do? Rankine spelt out the
implications of this distinction: whereas the scientist will
labour for the advancement of experimental inquiry and of
mathematics, and await patiently the time when these shall
be adequate to solve the question, in contrast, the engineer
has to exercise prompt and sound judgement and if
existing data are insufficient to give an exact solution of the
question, that approximate solution must be acted upon
which the best data attainable show to be the most probable. Terzaghi (1939) pointed out that The value of an
engineering science is determined by what it can accomplish
as a tool in the hands of the practising engineer, and it is
pertinent to ask how far current geotechnical research meets
the needs of the practising engineer.
In his key work on the history and development of the
scientific method, The structure of scientific revolutions,
Thomas Kuhn (1962) outlined the natural development of a
scientific subject once a theoretical framework has been
firmly established and standard textbooks have become available. The creative scientist now begins his research where
the textbook leaves off and will concentrate exclusively
upon the subtlest and most esoteric aspects of the natural
phenomena that concern his group. This in turn affects the
nature and content of his research communiques, which are
no longer embodied in books addressed to anyone who
might be interested in the subject matter of the field:
Instead they will usually appear as brief articles addressed
only to professional colleagues, the men whose knowledge
of a shared paradigm can be assumed and who prove to be
the only ones able to read the papers addressed to them.
This type of development, which is very difficult to avoid, is
of particular concern in engineering science. Within geotechnics there has been a progression from a situation where
most papers were written for the benefit of, and to be
understood by practising engineers to a situation where
many papers are written by academic researchers for an
audience of other academic researchers and can only be
understood by a small group of research scientists. Progression is scarcely an appropriate word to describe this change.
Importance of case histories
Sound engineering judgement requires experience, and the
most effective way of supplementing ones necessarily limited personal experience is by studying case histories: those
case records that include field measurements are of particular value to the practising engineer. More practically oriented
geotechnical research is needed that includes long-term
monitoring. A mathematical model of ground behaviour that
is not based on sound experimental data validated by field
observations will be of doubtful practical utility.
The disuse of case historiesthat is, the failure to study
case historiescan be calamitous. We may unnecessarily
repeat old mistakes, and in an increasingly litigious society
there will be those who, in the event of some geotechnical

THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS

567

Table 10. Owners and consulting engineers of monitored dams

Dam

Owner

Consulting engineers

Brianne
Marchlyn

Binnie & Partners

Binnie & Partners

Megget

Welsh Water
Central Electricity Generating
Board
Lothian Regional Council

Roadford
Scammonden
Winscar
Challacombe
Cwmwernderi
Holmestyes
Ogden
Ramsden
Walshaw Dean Lower
Yateholme

South West Water

Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water
South West Water
Welsh Water
Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water

failure, will be only too ready to point out the failure of the
designer to heed lessons from the past.
The misuse of case historiesthat is, the failure to draw
correct conclusions from case historiesis a more difficult
matter to rectify. The available case histories of a particular
type of geotechnical structure may not be representative. No
case history will be fully comprehensive: it will not provide
us with all the facts, and each case history will be influenced by the writers technical understanding, or lack of it.
In some cases evidence may have been carefully selected to
make a point that would not be supported by a more
balanced presentation of the evidence.
Discernment is required in the study of case histories, but
despite their shortcomings they provide a much needed
counterweight to excessive theorisation. This study of the
engineering behaviour of fill materials has attempted to
demonstrate the value of case histories, particularly those
that include long-term field measurements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In theoretical studies it is quite possible for an individual
to make a major contribution with relatively little help from
others, whereas fieldwork of necessity is a team effort, and
in the work on the engineering behaviour of fill materials at
BRE many people have been involved. Initially I had the
privilege of working for Dr Arthur Penman; at a later stage I
collaborated with Dr Paul Tedd and latterly with Hilary
Skinner. Many of the early field surveying measurements
were made by Don Burford. Not only did Ken Watts carry
out much of the later fieldwork, but he also provided help in
the preparation of this lecture. Much of the work had its
origin in the time when Professor John Burland was Head of
the Geotechnics Division. To all these colleagues, and to
others who have rendered assistance, I acknowledge my debt
and express my gratitude. Thanks are also due to Dr Peter
Bonfield, the Chief Executive of BRE, and to other members
of the senior management for the use of BRE facilities in
preparing this lecture.
Field measurements require the collaboration of the owners of the structures and their consulting engineers, and
these are listed in Table 10 for the research work on the
various dams. Most of these owners and consulting engineers have changed their names during the long periods that
BRE has taken measurements, and it seemed appropriate to
acknowledge their assistance using their earlier rather than
their later names. Much of the work on dams was carried
out in Yorkshire, and the help given by Jim Claydon and
Andrew Robertshaw of Yorkshire Water is gratefully ac-

Robert H. Cuthbertson &

Partners
Babtie Group
Rofe Kennard & Lapworth
Mander, Raikes & Marshall

knowledged. A substantial part of the research work on

opencast coal mining backfills was carried out in collaboration with the NCB Opencast Executive, and the experimental
work at Corby with the Corby Development Corporation.

NOTATION
B width of surcharge
cu undrained shear strength
D constrained modulus
D H secant-constrained modulus for
v H
H height of embankment or surcharge
h height of fill
hw reservoir head
n porosity
nmax maximum deflection of upstream membrane during reservoir
filling
ru pore pressure ratio
SI settlement index
s settlement
smax maximum settlement during embankment construction
sm maximum settlement on reservoir drawdown
sp permanent settlement on reservoir drawdown
sr recovered settlement on reservoir drawdown
t time since fill placement or loading
u pore pressure ratio
Va percentage air voids
w water content
wL liquid limit
wP plastic limit
ze depth of effectiveness of ground treatment
creep compression rate parameter
bulk unit weight
9 effective unit weight of submerged fill
d dry unit weight
s unit weight of surcharge fill
w unit weight of water
v vertical strain
r bulk density
rd dry density
rs particle density

v vertical stress

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VOTE OF THANKS
Professor J. B. BURLAND, Emeritus Professor, Imperial
College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
Dr Andrew Charles is the fourth Rankine Lecturer from
the Building Research Establishment. If we look a little
more closely at the statistics we find that no less than 10
Rankine Lecturers spent their formative geotechnical years
at BRE. The precise definition of the phrase formative
geotechnical years is deliberately vague. I hope that my
colleagues at Imperial College will forgive me if I say that,
according to my interpretation of the meaning of that phrase,

570

CHARLES

this score of 10 even beats Imperial Colleges contribution to

the geotechnical formation of Rankine Lecturers!
There is another statistic that, in this case, is unarguable.
Whereas most previous Lecturers (whether formed at BRE
or not) have presented outstanding individual contributions,
those working at BRE have each described outstanding team
efforts with themselves as leaders of their respective teams.
The previous three BRE Lecturers were Dr Leonard Cooling
(the 2nd Lecture), Dr Bill Ward (the 18th Lecture) and Dr
Arthur Penman (the 26th Lecture). This evenings Rankine
Lecture is a vintage product of the BRE stable, and emphasises once more the importance of field studies in geotechnical engineeringstudies that can be carried out only
by skilled and dedicated teams.
Karl Terzaghi never lost an opportunity to stress how continued progress in our discipline depends on field measurements
and observations. At the beginning of the second Rankine
Lecture, Dr Leonard Coolingthe founder of British soil
mechanicsemphasised that field measurements on full-scale
structures give insight into the behaviour of soils that provide
the engineer with what he called diagnostic techniques; today
we might call them calibrated modelling techniques.
This evening Dr Charles has demonstrated very clearly
how field measurements on fills provide such diagnostic
techniques, whether it be in assessing the collapse potential
of opencast mining backfill, the deformation of rockfill
dams, the effectiveness of ground treatment of deep fills, or
the condition assessment of old embankment dams.
As so often happens with field measurements, there are
surprises in some of the results we have seen this evening.
For example, even with creep settlement taking place, time
alone does not reduce collapse potential for a backfilled
opencast mine. Perhaps counter-intuitively, construction
movements of embankment dams are much easier to predict
than their response to reservoir impounding, which is shown
to be dominated by the nature and location of the watertight
element and the orientation of the impounding loads.
Dr Charless extensive investigations of ground treatment
methods have shown that the assessment of their effectiveness must be evidence based and directed at a demonstrable reduction in collapse potential.
The work on the condition assessment of old embankment
dams is of outstanding importance, as very difficult decisions have to be made about their safety, based on nonintrusive investigations. The simple models that Dr Charles
has developed to explain the relationship between long-term
crest settlement and operational cycles of water level will be
of great interest and value to civil engineers charged with

assessing safety. As noted by Dr Charles, this topic of

condition assessment of old embankment dams is a very
large one, and would warrant a major lecture in its own
right. He has only touched lightly on the substantial contribution that he himself has made to this subject.
Listening to the lecture I was struck by the long period of
time of some of the monitoring records. Many of the records
extend for 20 years or more. In some cases, if these records
had not extended for that length of time, erroneous conclusions could have emerged from the monitoring.
I believe that the findings that Dr Charles has presented
this evening have implications that extend well beyond our
own speciality of geotechnics. In the developed world we
have the vital but non-glamorous task of assessing the safety
and fitness of ageing infrastructure. Monitoring over such
lengthy periods of time is very important to a proper understanding of the processes of ageing, in order to develop
adequate diagnostic techniquesor, in his own words, in
order to understand what is normal behaviour and what is
abnormal behaviour. This is true not only of earthworks
and geotechnics but in many other areas of civil engineering
as well, including bridges, water supply, drainage and flood
protection. We can, and are, developing monitoring techniques; some are very sophisticated. But it seems to me,
listening to Dr Charles, that the difficulty is to interpret the
measurements correctly. The challenge to our profession is
how to ensure that well-focused research programmes of
long-term monitoring are set up, funded and above all led
by engineers of the calibre and dedication of our 48th
Rankine Lecturer. It is clear that such programmes are
needed to better develop the diagnostic techniques referred
to by Dr Cooling. I trust that BRE will continue to play a
vital role in such programmes.
On a personal note, Andrew has been a member of the
Institution of Civil Engineers Reservoirs Committee since
1996. This committee has a statutory responsibility for
recommending the appointment of civil engineers for evaluating the safety of new and existing reservoirs in the UK. It
is an onerous and highly responsible task. In my capacity as
Vice-President, Engineering, of ICE I had the interesting
and, at times, challenging task of chairing that committee
from 2003 to 2005. I can say from personal experience that
Andrew is very highly respected by his colleagues. His
contributions to that committee have been authoritative, wise
and full of common sense. I know you will agree with me
that this evenings lecture has been rich in all these three
attributes. It is with the utmost pleasure that I propose a
hearty vote of thanks to Dr Andrew Charles.