Abstract
The present study focuses on the breaching process and failure of barrier dams due to overtopping. In this work, a series of centrifugal model tests is presented to examine the failure mechanisms of landslide dams. Based on the experimental results, failure process and mechanism of barrier dam due to overtopping are analyzed and further verified by simulating the experimental overtopping failure process. The results indicate that the barrier dam will develop during the entire process of overtopping in the width direction, whereas the breach will cease to develop at an early stage in the depth direction because of the large particles that accumulate on the downstream slope. Moreover, headcut erosion can be clearly observed in the first two stages of overtopping, and coarsening on the downstream slope occurs in the last stage of overtopping. Thus, the bottom part of the barrier dam can survive after dam breaching and full dam failure becomes relatively rare for a barrier dam. Furthermore, the remaining breach would be smaller than that of a homogeneous cohesive dam under the same conditions.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51709025), the Chongqing Science and Technology Commission of China (Grant No. cstc2018jcyjAX0084, cstc2018jcyjAX0391 and cstc2016jcyjA0551), Open Research Fund of Key Laboratory of Failure Mechanism and Safety Control Techniques of Earth-Rock Dam of the Ministry of Water Resources (Grant No. YK319006), respectively.
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Zhao, Tl., Chen, Ss., Fu, Cj. et al. Centrifugal model tests and numerical simulations for barrier dam break due to overtopping. J. Mt. Sci. 16, 630–640 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5024-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11629-018-5024-0