Alexandria Engineering Journal (2011) 50, 111–115

Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

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ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Analytical solution of seepage through earth dam

with an internal core
a,* b
Mohamed Abd El-Razek M. Rezk , Abd El-Aziz Ahmed Ali Senoon

a
Irrigation and Hydraulic Dep., Faculty of Eng., Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt
b
Civil Eng. Dep., Faculty of Eng., Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

Received 1 August 2009; accepted 22 August 2010

Available online 6 May 2011

KEYWORDS Abstract Based on the experimental work previously presented for earth dam with internal core
Seepage; and done by Rezk [4], it is suggested to develop an analytical solution for the same problem and
Earth dams; comparisons between two solutions are presented. Effect of relative permeability of core (kc/kd)
Core; on each relative seepage discharge (Q1/Q) and relative drop of phreatic surface (d/h1) due to core
Filter; is investigated. Phreatic surface is drawn according to both experimental work and the analytical
Phreatic surface solution given by the authors.
ª 2011 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
All rights reserved.

1. Introduction researchers considered different materials for the core, (earth,

Asphalt, and clay), in previous study [2,3,5]. Impervious core
Earth dam with an internal core has main advantage in mini- through earth dam was considered in other studies [1,6,7].
mizing the total base width of the dam. The problem of seepage Earth dam with internal core is studied by Rozanov [9] and
through an earth dam with an internal core and based on an the seepage discharge formula are given as follows:
impervious base was studied experimentally by Rezk [4]. Many Q1 ¼ q1 þ q2
where q1 and q2 represent the quantity of seepage passing through
* Corresponding author.
the upper part and the lower part of the core, respectively, as
E-mail addresses: rezk@alexandria.cc (M.A. El-Razek M. Rezk),
shown in Fig. 1, and are given by the following equations:
Senoon2000@yahoo.com (A. El-Aziz Ahmed Ali Senoon).
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 
1110-0168 ª 2011 Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University. q1 ¼ 1:35kc 1:82ðdc Þ2 þ ðH  h1 Þ2  1:35d0c
Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.  
H  h1
q2 ¼ kc h1
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria d0c
 
University. kc
doi:10.1016/j.aej.2010.10.001 d0c ¼ s1 þ dc
kd
S1 ¼ kH þ ðT  HÞm1
Production and hosting by Elsevier m1
k¼ ; m1 ¼ cot a
1 þ 2m1
112 M.A El-Razek M. Rezk, A. El-Aziz Ahmed Ali Senoon

Nomenclature

ao vertical coordinate of drop in phreatic surface m1 upstream slope of the dam = cot a
before filter m2 downstream slope of the dam = cot b
b crest width of the dam Q discharge of dam without core
B dam width at base till filter start Q1 discharge of dam with core
D drop in free surface due to core T total height of the dam
F free board y1 drop in phreatic surface before core
h1 the retained upstream water head y2 drop in phreatic surface through the core
kc permeability coefficient of core a angle of inclination of the upstream face of the
kd permeability coefficient of dam dam
l horizontal seepage length before the core b angle of inclination of the downstream face of the
lc core width dam
lf distance from core end to beginning the filter start
L total horizontal seepage length

The quantity of seepage discharge through dam with an inter-
nal core, Fig. 2, was expressed by Rozanov [10] as follows:
H2
Q 1 ¼ kd h  i
2L 1 þ kkdc  dLc
The present theoretical study is mainly based on the exper-
imental work given by Rezk [4] (see Fig. 3). Comparison is also
made between the present work and that given by Rozanov
[9,10]. Phreatic surface established from the theoretical study
is compared with that given experimentally by Rezk [4].
considered in the suggested analytical solution. The dam is
divided into three zones, the first one is the dam part before
the core. The core width represents the second zone. From
the core end up to filter face is considered as the third zone.
The suggested mathematical solution aims to locate the
drop in phreatic surface in each zone, and specially drop due
to core.
3. Assumptions

2. Case study 1. Phreatic surface intersects with the beginning of the filter at
vertical distance (ao) calculated according to Kozeny [9].
Fig. 4 shows a definition sketch for an earth dam with an inter- 2. The percentage of h4/h1 is found from experimental results
nal core built up on an impervious horizontal base, which is performed by Rezk [4].

δc δc
δc
λH

q1
T m
1
1
H H
Kd KC Kd q2
h1
α
S1 S1

Figure 1 Geological section given by Rozanov [9].

KC
Kd Kd Y
T
H
h1
α
XX
δc L

Figure 2 Geological section suggested by Rozanov [10].

Analytical solution of seepage through earth dam with an internal core 113

KC
T Kd Kd
H

h1
α α

δc L
B-L
B

Figure 3 Geological section used in the experimental work by Rezk [4].

Figure 4 Definition sketch for an earth dam with an internal core.

3. Pavlovsky’s solution is used to find the passing seepage dis- 0.8

charge value through the three zones of the dam. 0.7
4. The relative value of the core permeability is taken in the
0.6
range of 0.1–0.8.
0.5
h4/h1

0.4
4. The suggested mathematical procedure to solve a problem of h4 ⎛ Kc ⎞
0.4347
0.3 = 0.7969⎜ ⎟
earth dam with internal core h1 ⎝ Kd ⎠
0.2

Referring to Fig. 4, to plot phreatic surface through the three 0.1

zones of the dam the following procedure is suggested. 0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7
1. For zone III: Fig. 4, value of hh41 is recommended from the kc/kd
following relation which is deduced from experimental
Figure 5 (h4/h1) versus (kc/kd) (after Rezk [4]).
results by Rezk [4] and is shown in Fig. 5
 0:4347
h4 kc
¼ 0:7969 3. Value of y1 (zone I) is deduced from the following
h1 kd
  equations:
for the known kkdc and h1, the value of h4 can be found.
2. For zone III, values of discharge Q and ao can be found kd

Q1 ¼ 2h1 y1  y21 Pavlovsky ½9

form solution of the following equation: 2l
4. Value of y2 (zone II) is given from the following equation:
Q1 ¼ kd  ao Kozeny ½9
kd 2
kc
Q1 ¼ h  a2o Pavlovsky ½9 Q1 ¼ ½ðh1  y1 Þ2  ðh1  y1  y2 Þ2  Pavlovsky ½9
2lf 4 2lc
114 M.A El-Razek M. Rezk, A. El-Aziz Ahmed Ali Senoon

5. Drop ‘d’ due to core is found according to the figure 1.2

geometry:
1
d ¼ h1  ðy1 þ y2 þ h4 Þ
0.8
L/B = 0.47

Q1/Q
5. Solved example 0.6 L/B = 0.39
L/B = 0.33
Given: h1 = 12 m, b = 4 m, m1 = 2, m2 = 1, lc = 2 m, 0.4
L/B = 0.28
lf = 15 m, kc/kd = 0.1, f = 1 m (see Fig. 6) 0.2 L/B = 0.25

Solution: 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
 0:4347
h4 kc kc/kd
¼ 0:7969
h1 kd
Figure 7 Relative discharge (Q1/Q) versus relative permeability
h4 ¼ 3:51 m of the core (kc/kd).
kd 2

Q 1 ¼ kd a o ¼ h  a2o
2lf 4
1   0.7
ao ¼ ð3:5Þ2  a2o 0.6
30 L/B = 0.47
a2o þ 30ao  12:32 ¼ 0:0 0.5 L/B = 0.39

ao ¼ 0:41 L/B = 0.33

0.4
L/B = 0.28

d/h1
Q1 ¼ 0:41kd L/B = 0.25
0.3
kd

Q1 ¼ 2h1 y1  y21 ¼ 0:41kd 0.2

2l
y21  24y1 þ 3:28 ¼ 0:0; y1 ¼ 0:14; h2 ¼ 11:86 m 0.1

kc 0
Q1 ¼ ½ðh1  y1 Þ2  ðh1  y1  y2 Þ2  ¼ 0:41kd
2lc 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
kc/kd
y22  23:72y2 þ 16:4 ¼ 0:0; y2 ¼ 0:70
h3 ¼ h2  y2 ¼ 11:87  0:7 ¼ 11:16 m Figure 8 Relative drop due to core (d/h1) versus relative
drop ðdÞ ¼ h3  h4 ¼ 11:16  3:51 ¼ 7:65 m permeability of the core (kc/kd).

6. Discussion of results
A mathematical solution, for earth dam with an internal core,
based on the experimental work given by Rezk [4] is estab-
lished, and solved example is presented to evaluate the present
solution.
The relation between the relative permeability of the core
(kc/kd) and the relative discharge (Q1/Q) is plotted and shown
in Fig. 7 for L/B = 0.25, 0.28, 0.33, 0.39 and 0.47. It is evident
that Q1/Q increases with increasing (kc/kd) and decreases with
increasing L/B as shown from Fig. 7.
The relative permeability (kc/kd) is also drawn versus the
relative drop of the phreatic surface due to core (d/h1). The
relative drop (d/h1) decreases with increasing the relative per-
meability (kc/kd) and increases with increasing (L/B), as shown
in Fig. 8.
The relation between the relative permeability (kc/kd) and
the relative discharge (Q1/Q) is plotted, as shown in Fig. 9,

4m
2m

1m

0.14 m
0.7 m
2 m2
1= 7.65 m =1
12 m m

3.51 m

ao

h1= 12 m, h2 = 11.86 m, h3 = 11.16 m, h4 = 3.51 m

ao= 0.41 m, y1 = 0.14 m, y2 = 0.7 m, d = 7.65 m

Figure 6 Results of the solved example.

Analytical solution of seepage through earth dam with an internal core
1.2
0.8
Q1/Q
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3
Figure 9 Comparison between the suggested mathematical solution given by the authors, Rozanov [9,10] and Rezk [4].
Figure 10 Phreatic surface according to the suggested mathematical solution and that given by Rezk [4].
according to Rozanov [9,10], Rezk [4], and the present sug-
gested solution given by the authors.
The present work falls between theoretical work established
by Rozanov [9,10] and the experimental one developed by
Rezk [4] as shown in Fig. 9.
Fig. 10 shows comparison between phreatic surface devel-
oped according to Rezk [4] and the suggested solution given
by the authors.
It is clear that phreatic surface for the two above-mentioned
methods are almost close to each other at the first zone of the
dam, through and after the core.
Phreatic surface in case of experimental work through the
first and second zone is convex, while for the present work is
concave, and results are almost close especially in the third
zone as shown in Fig. 10.
7. Conclusions
A mathematical solution is suggested in case of earth dam with
an internal core. The following conclusions are made:
1. Design charts are presented in dimensionless form between
kc/kd and both d/h1 and Q1/Q and the suggested mathemat-
ical solution is compared with others and close agreement is
noticed.
2. Phreatic surface is drawn according to the suggested math-
ematical procedure and compared with the work given by
Rezk [4], and the phreatic surface in the two cases is almost
close to each other.
115
Roz(10)
Roz(9)
Rezk(4)
Present Work
0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8
kc/kd
References
[1] B. Lofquist, Earth pressures in a thin impervious core, in:
Transactions, Fourth International Congress on Large Dams,
vol. 1, New Delhi, 1951, pp. 99–109.
[2] Jamea P. Gorwdon, Rockfill dams: dams with sloping earth
cores, Transaction, ASCE, vol. 125, Part II, Paper No. 3069,
1960.
[3] Lohr, Feiner, Asphaltic concrete cores, experiences and
developments, in: Transactions, Eleventh International
Congress on Large Dams, vol. III, Madrid, 1973.
[4] Mohamed Abd El-Razek M. Rezk, Earth dam with an internal
core, Alex. Eng. J., Alex. Univ. 34 (1) (1995) C1–C13.
[5] M. Masksimovic, Optimum position of the central clay core of a
rockfill dam in respect to arching and hydraulic fracture, in:
Transaction, Eleventh International Congress on Large Dams,
vol. III, Madrid, 1973.
[6] Mohamed Rezk, Rabiea Nasr, An experimental study for seepage
through an earth dam with cut-off wall based on an inclined
impervious base, Alex. Eng. J., Alex. Univ. 29 (4) (1990) 209–214.
[7] Mohamed Rezk, Rabiea Nasr, Seepage through an earth dam
founded on layer of finite depth with cut-off wall, Alex. Eng. J.,
Alex. Univ. 31 (1) (1992) C315–C325.
[9] N.P. Roznanv, Hydrotechnical Structures, Strouizdat, Moscow,
1978, pp. 168–173.
[10] N.N. Roznanv, Earth Dams, Strouizdat, Moscow, 1983, pp.
118–123.
Further Reading
[8] P.Ya. Polubarinova-Kochina, Theory of the Motion of Ground
Water, Gostekhizdat, Moscow, 1952, p. 135.