Seismic Behavior of Zoned Core Embankment Dam

The aim of this investigation is to study the dynamic behavior of a zoned core earth-fill dam. Due to lack of suitable clay materials, the Mamloo dam is designed as zoned core that is composed of three vertical zones including central lean clay (CL) core and two sides clayey gravel (GC) layers. Seismic behavior of dam was analyzed in two cases including homogenous clayey core and zoned core by finite element software. This study shows that the displacements, accelerations and spectral response in simple core are more than zoned core. Therefore, it seems that the natural frequency of simple core is similar to zoned core. So the zoned core section has as seismic behavior as simple core approximately. It is also resulted that the generated pore water pressure in simple core is more than zoned core that causes tensile stress in the crest of simple core dam. So the zoned core section is in the safety district to failure from tensile under water pore pressure.