Further titles in this series: 1. G. SANGLERAT, THE PENETROMETER AND SOIL EXPLORATION 2. Q. ZÀRUBA and V. MENCL, LANDSLIDES AND THEIR CONTROL 3. Ε. E. WAHLSTROM, TUNNELING IN ROCK 4. R. SILVESTER, COASTAL ENGINEERING, I and II 5. R. N. YOUNG and B. P. WARKENTIN, SOIL PROPERTIES AND BEHAVIOUR ft. Ε. E. WAHLSTROM, DAMS, DAM FOUNDATIONS, AND RESERVOIR SITES 7. W F. CHEN, LIMIT ANALYSIS AND SOIL PLASTICITY 8. L. N. PERSEN, ROCK DYNAMICS AND GEOPHYSICAL EXPLORATION Introduction to Stress Waves in Rocks 9. M. D. GIDIGASU, LATERITE SOIL ENGINEERING 10. Q. ZÂRUBA and V. MENCL, ENGINEERING GEOLOGY 11. H. K. GUPTA and B. K. RASTOGI, DAMS AND EARTHQUAKES 12. F. H. CHEN, FOUNDATIONS ON EXPANSIVE SOILS 13. L. HOBST and J. ZAJÎC, ANCHORING IN ROCK 14. B. VOIGT (Editor), ROCKSLIDES AND AVALANCHES, 1 and 2 15. C. LOMNITZ and E. ROSENBLUETH, SEISMIC RISK AND ENGINEERING DECISIONS lft. C. A. BAAR, APPLIED SALT-ROCK MECHANICS, 1 The In-Situ Behavior of Salt Rocks 17. A. P. S. SELVADURAI, ELASTIC ANALYSIS OF SOIL-FOUNDATION INTERACTION 18. J. FEDA, STRESS IN SUBSOIL AND METHODS OF FINAL SETTLEMENT CALCULA- TION 19. A. KÉZDI, STABILIZED EARTH ROADS 20. E. W. BRAND and R. P. BRENNER (Editors), SOFT-CLAY ENGINEERING 21. A. MYSLIVEC and Z. KYSELA, THE BEARING CAPACITY OF BUILDING FOUNDA- TIONS 22. R. N. CHOWDHURY, SLOPE ANALYSIS 23. P. BRUUN, STABILITY OF TIDAL INLETS Theory and Engineering 24. Ζ. BAZANT, METHODS OF FOUNDATION ENGINEERING 25. À. KÉZDI, SOIL PHYSICS Selected Topics 2ft. H. L. JESSBERGER (Editor), GROUND FREEZING 27. D. STEPHENSON, ROCKFILL IN HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING 28. P. E. FRIVIK, N. JANBU, R. SAETERSDAL and L. I. FINBORUT (Editors), Ground Freezing 1980 Developments in Geotechnical Engineering 29 CANAL AND RIVER LEVÉES by PA VOL PETER Department of Civil Engineering, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia ELSEVIER SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING COMPANY Amsterdam - Oxford - New York - 1982 Scientific Editor Prof. Ing. Dr. Stanislav Kratochvil, DrSc. Reviewers Prof. Ing. Vaclav Hâlek, DrSc. Prof. Ing. Julius Soltész, CSc. Published in co-edition with VEDA, Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava Distribution of this book is being handled by the following publishers for the U.S.A. and Canada Elsevier/North-Holland, Inc., 52 Vanderbilt Avenue New York, New York 10017 for the East European Countries, China, Northern Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Mongolia VEDA, Publishing House of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava for all remaining areas Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company 1, Molenwerf P.O. Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Peter, Pavol Canal and River Levées (Developments in Geotechnical Engineering, 29) Revised and updated translation of : Kanâlové a ochranné hradze. Bibliography: p. 540 Includes indexes. 1. Earth dams. 2. Levées. 3. Embankments. I. Title. II. Series. TC543.P4613 627'.42 81-9833 ISBN 0-444-99726-1 (Vol. 29) AACR2 ISBN 0-444-41622-5 (Series) © Pavol Peter, Bratislava 1982 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. Printed in Czechoslovakia PREFACE The need has arisen for a comprehensive book for civil engineering designers. A few books on canal embankments and levées do exist, but they either give insufficient consideration to the many practical problems, or are limited to special aspects. In this book, we intend to give a clear explanation of the fundamental principles of canal embankments and levées calculation and design. It is assumed that the designer has no prior knowledge of the subject, but has a good understanding of mechanics and fluid dynamics. The basis of this English version is the Slovak version, augmented in the first, sixth and seventh chapter by recent work on dam design, engineering and maintenance. Some fundamental principles are discussed and illustrated with applications to practical situations. It is intended that the book can also be used as a reference source. The author is grateful to various contractors, organizations (mainly to Hydrocon- sult, Bratislava) and individuals who permitted the use of their figures and tables. Most of all, the author would like to thank Professor S. Kratochvil, Associated Professor V. Hâlek, and Professor J. Soltéfcz for their valuable comments. INTRODUCTION Canal embankments and levées are amongst the world's oldest hydroengineering structures. Their history began many thousands years ago, as is proven by the remains found in all centres of ancient culture, especially in China, India, Egypt and Mesopotamia. This fact often leads to the erroneous supposition that the long history of this type of construction contributes to progress in this particular field of civil engineering, which should logically have a certain superiority over other younger branches of the science, for example, hydroelectric works. However, a thorough study of the present state of the design and construction of levées and canal embankments persuades us that the reverse is true. This unfavourable situation is evidenced in the fact that neither modern scientific knowledge about soil mechanics, hydrogeology and hydrology, nor even experi- ence in modern construction technology, are taken sufficiently into account when designing levées and embankments. If we consider the profiles of levées planned or constructed over the last ten years, we see that new gains in our knowledge of the functional properties of soils commonly used in earth dams, are ignored both from the point of view of stability and from the possibilities of seepage and uplift control in embankment subsoils. From a comparison and study of older and newer canal embankment cross-sec- tions, we can see the progress made in perfecting their construction, especially since 1935. At the same time, designers of levées and canal embankments are usually complacent, drawing their knowledge from traditional earth structures alone. The main source of learning is found in the treatment of dams, documented by the international Paris-based organization, Commission Internationale des Grands Barrages. This institution is systematically developing theory and reassessing knowledge in this field, while other international societies, International Commis- sion on Irrigation and Drainage in New Delhi, India and International Central Board of Irrigation and Power devote themselves mainly to questions of hydraulics and the wider aspects of irrigation. Drawing knowledge from traditional structures leads to a simplistic view of planning problems. Drawing knowledge from dam engineering leads, as with most problems, to an excessively perfectionist view of their solution ; this results in a substantial increase in construction costs. Even so, many of the problems remain unsolved, because, despite the relatively modest 12 INTRODUCTION construction of canal embankments and levées compared with dams, they are not easier to design. One reason for this is that, whereas for dams one profile is usually chosen from a wide range, the choice is much more limited for levées. These have to lie along the direction of water flow where geological conditions are often complicated. This is true of embankments running through regions beset with filtration anomalies, where it is necessary to choose active and passive protecting elements to counter seepage according to totally different criteria from those for dams. This fact is extremely important for the further development of embankment design. It shows that it is necessary to work through these particular problems and indeed to abandon completely old seepage theories in favour of seeking flew ones. We shall not be satisfied with past stability analyses of embankments; we shall rework totally the theory of filtration stability in a subsoil which is based on laws drawn from Darcy's equation, also the basis of the most commonly used criteria of K. S. Bligh and E. W. Lane. Previously, these criteria have very often been used even though they are not really suitable for assessing the real danger in the most critical cases. We must also revise the idea that seepage, and sometimes the quantity of springs along the embankment, comprise the main criteria for judging the threat to the structure and whole surrounding area. With regard to the inevitability of a reappraisal of our knowledge, we shall concern ourselves fairly thoroughly with the theory of seepage and calculations of stability, and also with examining the difficult geological conditions in the actual subsoil of embankments, not only in completely ideal conditions. From this standpoint, we also wish to analyse sealing methods and embankment-building technology, but without losing sight of the fact that our main concern is with the correct evaluation of dimensions, and solutions to the problems of embankments in unfavourable geological conditions. Canal embankments entirely define the upper flow profile of the canal, in order for it to fulfil safely its function as an artificial water course. This function is laid down by its basic aim to serve, and according to this we can distinguish between the embankments of power-station supply canals, irrigation canals — supply and distribution for the irrigation of land — and waterway canals. These all present their own problems, especially in the demands of sealing (protection of the seal in navigation canals) and in the technology of construction. In this respect, the largest functional variation is found in irrigation canals, for which we sometimes require impermeability (usually in supply canals) and elsewhere find that permeability is of little importance (in distribution channels). We avoid the problems of drainage channels since they are usually below level. River levées (for the prevention of flooding of land and housing) have a varied character which demands their inclusion. From the point of view of functional construction, we can differentiate : (1) special levées for the protection of housing, towns and land; INTRODUCTION 13 (2) control levées by which the flow regime is regulated and directed, and the flow direction controlled, mainly during floods but occasionally also for controlling flows of ice and floating debris ; (3) dykes around reclaimed land (overflowed structures and otherwise) for improving land-usage conditions ; (4) sea walls and dyke embankments — for protection against waves. We direct our main attention at solving the problems of protecting control levées, which we sometimes call anti-flood (or -inundation) dykes. However, we shall first apply ourselves to common problems closely related to these structures. SYMBOLS a storage capacity of a layer (a = Tino) ; coefficient ; distance between two objects (plates, layers, etc.) A air content Ar Archimedean number b coefficient Β width of footing; width of canal water ß, Β pore pressure coefficients c shear strength parameter; coefficient of hydraulic resistance Ci coefficient of hydraulic friction undrained (total stress) shear strength parameter Cu coefficient of consolidation ; surface area of dry packing per unit volume Cv C constant a coefficient of curvature CD, CL coefficient of drag force and lift force G coefficient of uniformity of soil diameter; thickness of the layer (slab, lining, apron, etc.); length od drainage path ; diameter of grain which can be carried out by seepage water </, diameter of sediment particle or of particle with characteristic specific surface D depth of footing ; depth below drains to the impermeable layer ; distan- ce ; thickness of the layer degree of density and relative density e distance ; void ratio ; expansion E energy; Young's modulus total active thrust ; total passive resistance of earth modulus of elasticity (after Hooke) ) error function complementary of u=—-= I exp ( — z2) dz f factor of mechanical friction hydraulic friction factor F force ; hydrodynamic force seepage force SYMBOLS 15 Fr Froude number g acceleration due to gravity 9.81 m s~2 (force per unit mass due to gravity) G weight of the body G specific gravity of solid particles ; gravity parameter (G = t> : υ) s s s G? gravity parameter ; v related to fictive velocity s h water elevation difference between two positions s and s (Hi — H) 0 2 As water elevation difference between exit free water surface and water table in the well (or ground surface) H height ; potential energy related to weight of mass — H=p: (gg + h) ; total elevation difference / unit vector in the χ coordinate direction i material commodity index m / hydraulic gradient ; integral value 7 index of liquidity L 7p index of plasticity; pressure gradient / unit vector in the y coordinate direction, vertical coordinate / integral, seepage force k coefficient of permeability ; the unit vector in the ζ coordinate direction ko, k k coefficients of permeability according to Darcy (after empirical formulas u {) and other) k, Κ coefficients of permeability in horizontal and vertical directions h /, L length ; the direct distance between the ends m factor of safety (in mechanical stability computation) M mass η porosity n effective porosity cU Ν number of equipotential drops N number of low channels { ρ pressure of the liquid (water) ; normal load /?* piezometric pressure — potential energy related to value p* = p + ggh Ρ total pressure P, P total active thrust and total passive resistance (earth pressure) a p PI plasticity index PL(Wp) plasticity limit q volume of water flowing per unit time (through unit cross-sectional area) ; volume flux ; surface pressure ; total foundation pressure of the structure q specific seepage quantity (q = q: kH) q* superficial (fictive) velocity Ο total flow per unit time ; discharge ; surface load R resistance 16 SYMBOLS R, r radius, and radius of the small tube (capillary) R hydraulic radius H s path of seepage ; settlement ; total unit of shear strength ; shear strength 5 surface ; cross-sectional area ; degree of saturation ; sand SF safety factor t time ; thickness of the sealing Τ transmissivity of aquifer (T=kD) T tortuosity of pore channels k T time factor of vertical drainage y ü average velocity w, w pore water pressure w w pore air pressure a U potential of volume forces ; uplift water force ; degree of consolidation ν discharge velocity v'f seepage velocity v fall velocity — settling velocity of a solid particle in a fluid due to gravity s V volume ; total velocity vector w water content ( w — natural, Wopt — optimum) n w , W liquid and plastic limits L P Χ, Υ, Ζ components of the body force (forces) in the JC, y, ζ axis directions ζ depth coordinate ; vertical coordinate ; elevation head a slope angle ; coefficient of drainage effect of a bore hole β slope angle γ unit weight γ' Buoyant unit weight of soil γ dry unit weight of soil ά y unit weight in natural conditions (in the field) n /sat saturated unit weight y unit weight of water w δ angle of friction between two different materials op portion of sand filled in pores of gravel S heterogeneity coefficient s η dynamic viscosity * 6 function of Youkowski χ relationship λ modulus of eliptic integral ν kinematic viscosity η, ζ horizontal (§, η) and vertical (ζ) coordinates ρ bulk density Q dry density D Q density of solid particles S ρ ι saturated soil density 8β