Simulation Analysis of Geomembrane Defects in Core Wall on Seepage Characteristics of Dam Body
ZHANG Jiasheng
ZHANG Yang
LI Jinxiao
Abstract：Geomembrane is one of the important anti-seepage measures for core wall earth-rock dams.Defects in geomembrane can alter the seepage characteristics of geomembrane core wall dams,affecting the safe operation and benefit realization of dams.Taking a clay core wall dam as the research object,this paper conducts secondary development of finite element numerical simulation using open-source libraries to analyze the effects of geomembrane defect elevation,defect size,defect quantity,and reservoir water level decline rate on the seepage characteristics of the dam body.The results show that when the defect elevation is located at 1/2 of the calculated reservoir water level,the phreatic line height and seepage volume inside the dam body reach their maximum values;when the defect elevation approaches and exceeds the reservoir water level,the phreatic line height and seepage volume decrease rapidly.The phreatic line height and seepage volume of the dam body increase with the increase of defect size and decrease with the decline of reservoir water level;under the same reservoir water level change conditions,the seepage field calculation results corresponding to different decline rates are basically consistent.An increase in the number of geomembrane defects also leads to a rise in the phreatic line and an increase in seepage volume.Therefore,the occurrence of geomembrane defects should be avoided in practical engineering.
Keywords：core wall damgeomembranenumerical simulationdefect characteristicsseepage characteristics
Publication Date：2026-07-20
Online Publishing Date：2026-09-16(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 93-98 )