Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2nd edition
Robin Fell
Emeritus Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Patrick MacGregor
Consulting Engineering Geologist, Australia
David Stapledon
Consulting Engineering Geologist,Australia
Graeme Bell
Consulting Dams Engineer,Australia
Mark Foster
Senior Principal Dams Engineer, URS Australia, Sydney, Australia
Cover illustration: Hinze Dam at completion of Stage 3 construction. Courtesy of The Hinze
Dam Alliance (comprising Seqwater, SKM, Thiess and URS).
CRC Press/Balkema is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2015 Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India
Printed and Bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication or the information contained
herein may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without written prior permission from the publisher.
Although all care is taken to ensure integrity and the quality of this publication
and the information herein, no responsibility is assumed by the publishers nor
the author for any damage to the property or persons as a result of operation
or use of this publication and/or the information contained herein.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fell, Robin.
Geotechnical engineering of dams / Robin Fell, Emeritus, Professor, School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, University of NewSouth Wales, Sydney, Australia, Patrick MacGregor, Consulting
Engineering Geologist, Australia, David Stapledon, Consulting Engineering Geologist, Australia,
Graeme Bell, Consulting Dams Engineer, Australia, Mark Foster, Senior Principal Dams Engineer,
URS Australia, Sydney, Australia. 2nd edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-138-00008-7 (hardback) ISBN 978-0-203-38731-3 (ebook)
1. DamsDesign and construction. I. Title.
TC540.F45 2014
627.8dc23
2014040176
Published by: CRC Press/Balkema
P.O. Box 11320, 2301 EH Leiden,The Netherlands
e-mail: Pub.NL@taylorandfrancis.com
www.crcpress.com www.taylorandfrancis.com
ISBN: 978-1-138-00008-7 (Hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-38731-3 (eBook PDF)
Table of contents
Author Biographies
1
Introduction
1.1 Outline of the book
1.2 Types of embankment dams and their main features
1.3 Types of concrete dams and their main features
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Table of contents
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Table of contents
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8.5
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Table of contents
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18 Foundation grouting
18.1 General concepts of grouting dam foundations
18.2 Grouting design cement grout
18.2.1 Staging of grouting
18.2.2 The principles of closure
18.2.3 The design and quality control of cement grouts
18.2.3.1 The cement and additives used for grouting
18.2.3.2 Water cement ratio
18.2.3.3 Rheological properties of grout
18.2.3.4 High, medium and low mobility grouts
18.2.3.5 Field quality control testing of grouts
18.2.3.6 Grout pressure
18.2.3.7 Recommended closure criteria for embankment
and concrete dams
18.2.4 Effect of cement particle size, viscosity, fracture spacing and
Lugeon value on the effectiveness of grouting
18.2.5 The effectiveness of a grout curtain in
reducing seepage
18.2.6 The depth and lateral extent of grouting
18.2.7 Grout hole position and orientation
18.3 Some practical aspects of grouting with cement
18.3.1 Grout holes
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18.3.2 Standpipes
18.3.3 Grout caps
18.3.4 Grout mixers, agitator pumps and other equipment
18.3.5 Monitoring of grouting program
18.3.6 Water pressure testing
18.4 Prediction of grout takes
18.5 Durability of cement grout curtains
18.6 Chemical grouts in dam engineering
18.6.1 Types of chemical grouts and their properties
18.6.2 Grout penetrability in soil and rock
18.6.3 Grouting technique
18.6.4 Applications to dam engineering
19 Mine and industrial tailings dams
19.1 General
19.2 Tailings and their properties
19.2.1 What are mine tailings?
19.2.2 Tailings terminology and definitions
19.2.3 Tailings properties
19.2.3.1 General
19.2.3.2 Particle size
19.2.3.3 Mineralogy
19.2.3.4 Dry density and void ratio
19.2.3.5 Permeability
19.2.3.6 Properties of water in tailings
19.3 Methods of tailings discharge and water recovery
19.3.1 Tailings discharge
19.3.2 Cyclones
19.3.3 Sub-aqueous vs sub-aerial deposition
19.3.4 Water Recovery
19.4 Prediction of tailings properties
19.4.1 Beach slopes and slopes below water
19.4.2 Particle sorting
19.4.3 Permeability
19.4.4 Dry density
19.4.5 The prediction of desiccation rates
19.4.6 Drained and undrained shear strength
19.4.6.1 Drained shear strength
19.4.6.2 Undrained shear strength
19.5 Methods of construction of tailings dams
19.5.1 General
19.5.2 Construction using tailings
19.5.2.1 Upstream method
19.5.2.2 Downstream method
19.5.2.3 Centreline method
19.5.3 Construction using conventional water dams
19.5.4 Selection of embankment construction method
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Author Biographies
Robin Fell is Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of New South
Wales and also works as a peer review consultant. He has 48 years of experience in
geotechnical engineering of dams, landslides and civil and mining projects in Australia,
New Zealand, the Pacific, North and Central America, and Asia. He has worked
on over 100 dams worldwide and has been involved in all aspects of planning, site
investigation, design and construction of embankment and concrete gravity dams.
David Stapledon spent many years on the investigation of large dam construction
sites in various countries. He was a Professor of Engineering Geology at the University
of South Australia (19641993) and worked as a Consultant in Engineering Geology,
contributing to major dam projects in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia.
He has more than 50 years of experience and was awarded the John Jaeger Memorial
Medal for Contributions to Geomechanics in 1995.
Graeme Bell has worked in dam engineering since 1962. His role has varied from
providing the full technical input, design management and construction advice for new
dams to the preparation of complex structural analyses of existing dams. From 1979,
he has acted as an independent reviewer on many dam projects, mainly in Australia,
but also in several overseas locations.
Mark Foster has 20 years of experience in dam engineering and geotechnical engineering. This has involved a wide variety of projects including dam safety reviews,
design of dam upgrade projects and dam safety risk assessments for embankment and
concrete dams. He has a particular interest in the assessment of piping and internal
erosion of embankment dams which was the topic of his doctoral research studies at
the University of New South Wales.