ABSTRACT

The dams called ‘homogeneous dams’ are the prototype of dams constructed for millennia to protect people and cultivated land from inundation and to create water reservoirs. They are essentially of only one type of soil (Fig. 5.1). Such dams are not homogeneous in the literal sense, since the construction method in subsequent layers leads to different permeabilities in horizontal and in vertical directions up to k H = 10 –k v. In our times filter layers are attached to the dams for safety reasons, designed to constitute favourable hydraulic conditions. Typical section of a homogeneous dam. Example Shen river dam, Nigeria 1979.

Dam body of laterite

Filter

Riprap

Grout curtain and inspection gallery

Piezometer

Surface survey point

Foundation of granite

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