• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.147-155
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• 2023

This study aims to present a method to evaluate the relative risk of failure due to liquefaction of domestic small to medium-sized earthfill dams with a height of less than 15 m, which has little information on geotechnical properties. Based on the results of previous researches, a series of methods and procedures for estimating the probability of dam failure due to liquefaction, which calculates the probability of liquefaction occurrence of the dam body, the amount of settlement at the dam crest according to the estimation of the residual strength of the dam after liquefaction, the overtopping depth determined from the amount of settlement at the dam crest, and the probability of failure of the dam due to overtopping was explicitly presented. To this end, representative properties essential for estimating the probability of failure due to the liquefaction of small to medium-sized earthfill dams were presented. Since it is almost impossible to directly determine these representative properties for each of the target dams because it is almost impossible to obtain geotechnical property information, they were estimated and determined from the results of field and laboratory tests conducted on existing small to medium-sized earthfill dams in previous researches. The method and procedure presented in this study were applied to 12 earthfill dams on a trial basis, and the liquefaction failure probability was calculated. The analysis of the calculation results confirmed that the representative properties were reasonable and that the overall evaluation procedure and method were effective.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.31-38
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to propose a chart that can easily estimate the seismic failure probability of small and medium sized earthfill dams with little geotechnical information. By considering the existing method and procedure for estimating the seismic failure probability of a dam, the zero seismic failure probability curve, on which the seismic probability is zero regardless of the geotechnical properties of the dam, was determined in the form of hyperbola in the dam height and freeboard ratio plane. It was confirmed that the dam height-freeboard ratio distribution pattern of the Korean small and medium sized dams was shaped like a hyperbola like the zero seismic failure probability curve. Therefore, a estimation chart was constructed in which a number of seismic failure probability contours are represented by a number of hyperbolas at regular intervals in the dam height-freeboard ratio plane. The proposed chart was applied to the calculation of the seismic failure probability of two small and midium sized dams with relatively well-managed geotechnical properties and the validity of the chart was confirmed by comparison with the results obtained by the existing procedures and methods. In the future, the proposed chart is expected to be useful in considering investment priorities for maintenance and reinforcement of small and medium sized dams in preparation for earthquakes.