Mahabad Earth Dam Stability Analysis using Monte-Carlo Simulation and its Comparison via Limit Equilibrium Method

Today, with modern methods of statistics and the application of these techniques in engineering, probabilistic analysis have gained popularity along with deterministic analysis. The important and necessary issue in the design of earth dams is uncertainty in the determination of geotechnical parameters by which slope stability is calculated, and usually these uncertainties are not included in the calculations. In this paper, Geostudio software is used for Mahabad dam stability analysis. The software is capable of analyzing the stability of earth dams by deterministic and probabilistic methods. Mahabad Dam is located, near the town of Mahabad in West Azerbaijan province, Iran. Mahabad Dam upstream and downstream slope stability analysis is investigated after construction (before dewatering) and then in a state of steady seepage by Bishop, Morgenstern-Price, and Janbu methods. By quantifying uncertainty parameters (Φ and c) and also generating random numbers from the above parameters for each random number group, the confidence coefficient is derived, and finally the obtained confidence coefficient by deterministic method and by Monte-Carlo probabilistic method is compared. Then, the reliability of failure levels in various states is investigated.

کلیدواژه ها:

earth dam ، slope stability ، Monte-Carlo (probabilistic analysis) ، deterministic analysis