Modelling the relationship between water level and vertical displacements on the Yamula Dam, Turkey

Monitoring deformation pattern of dams is often one of the most effective ways to understand their safety status. The main objective of the study is to find the extent to which rising reservoir level affects the mechanism of deformation of The Yamula Dam under certain change in the reservoir level conditions during to the first filling period. Three different deformation analysis techniques, namely static, kinematic and dynamic, were used to analyze four geodetic monitoring records consisting of vertical displacements of nine object points established on the Dam and six reference points surrounding of it, to see whether the rising reservoir level have a role in the vertical deformations during the first filling period. The largest vertical displacements were in the middle of the dam. There is an apparent linear relationship between the dam subsidence and the reservoir level. A dynamic deformation model was developed to model this situation. The model infers a causative relationship between the reservoir level and the dam deformations. The analysis of the results determines the degree of the correlation between the change in the reservoir level and the observed structural deformation of the dam.