Construction and Monitoring of Cement/Bentonite Cutoff Walls: Case Study of Karkheh Dam, Iran

Water seepage is one of the most important features of embankment dams. To prevent and reduce seepage, it is necessary to seal the dam. Plastic concrete cutoff walls are one of the most efficient methods in waterproofing the foundation of embankment dams on permeable alluvial substrates. Sufficient resistance to loads, low permeability to maintain dam sealing, high ductility compatible with the foundation and deformation under load without cracking are the main requirements in plastic concrete cutoff walls. In this paper, the construction and implementation of the cutoff wall of Karkheh Dam, which is one the world’s largest water sealing projects, was studied. In addition, a numerical model using Seep-3D software was developed to evaluate the efficiency of the cut-off wall to decrease the seepage over the dam’s foundation. The numerical results validated by instrumentation statistics resulted from 17-years dam operation. According to the results, after the drainage of the reservoir, the cutoff wall optimally reduced the hydraulic gradient by 0.08 from 2.35 and the water leakage by 3.1 m/s from 18.3 m/s.