Experimental study on structural model failure of cemented material dam

With the rapid development of cemented material dams (CMDs), to ensure the successful completion and safe operation of a dam under various conditions, it is necessary to study the stress, displacement and damage modes of the dam. In the model test, there are usually no shear tests on CMD’s simulated materials, resulting in the models with physical and mechanical parameters different from those of the actual projects suffering shear failures. To address this issue, this paper took the Shoukoubao CMD as the archetype, conducted orthogonal tests and designed materials with the C (cohesion) and f (friction coefficient) values similar to those of the archetype, and also conducted structural damage model tests on the CMD to obtain the failure process and damage mode of the dam under the overload state. The experimental results show that the surface of the dam body was greatly affected by the compressive strain, the dam body underwent horizontal displacement downstream, and cracks appeared above the dam heel and toe. The dam body produced a sliding failure along the cracks in the dam foundation surface, with a tendency to rotate and tilt. The overload safety factor (the multiplier of the water pressure when the model fails) of CMD was Kp = 6.8. Finally, the finite element calculation was applied to give supplement to and verify the model test results. This paper provides a theoretical basis for the promotion and development of CMDs in the new century.