A REVIEW ON PERFORMANCE OF EARTH FILL DAMS DURING PAST EARTHQUAKES

Dams which are constructed of earth and rock-fill materials they are generally referred as embankment dams or fill-type dams. Athani et al. (2015) examined that the Earth-fill dams are simple structures which are able to prevent the sliding and overturning because of their self-weight. Gahlot & Gajbhiye (2013) examine recently there has been remarkable development in the fields of design, research and construction of dam in India and India is now very much capable of designing and constructing a dam which resist the seismic vibrations and withstand without much failure. Developing countries need water for irrigation purpose to increase the production of food for good living. So dams are the best solution for storing water. Dam like structures are very risky for seismic vibrations so for that reason they are designed to resist the seismic vibrations. The vibrations from earthquake are dynamic in nature so static analysis is not sufficient for designing hydraulic structures like Dam. A failure of earth dam is: hydraulic failure, seepage failure, piping through dam body and structural failure due to earthquake. The design and construction of an earth-fill dam is one of the great challenge for the engineers in the field of geotechnical engineering, because of the unavoidable in variation foundation condition and also the properties of the material which are available for the construction. So the survival of dam is very crucial against seismic vibrations. This is a need to analyze and check the behavior of earthfill dam during and after the application of the seismic loading. Keywords—Earthfill dam, Dam failures, Stability failure, Liquefaction failure, Earthquake failure