Seismic behavior and numerical simulation of earth-fill dam with geosynthetic clay liner in shaking table test

In this paper, shaking table tests by using a small-scale as well as a full-scale earth-fill dams with geosynthetic clay liner were carried out in order to examine aseismicity of these earth-fill dams. Moreover, the behavior of these fully instrumented earth-fill dams subjected to seismic loading was simulated by numerical analysis. First, in the small-scale shaking table test, there observed no failure along the geosynthetic clay liner when the earth-fill dam was subjected to seismic motion. When the sta-bility of the model dam was simulated by pseudo-static limit equilibrium analysis, and also the seismic response was simulated by FEM seismic analysis, it was successfully confirmed that the behavior of the model earth-fill dam was unaffected by the existence of the geosynthetic clay liner. Second, comparative shaking table tests by using a full-scale earth-fill dam with sloping core zone and the other with geosyn-thetic clay liner were carried out. The acceleration response as well as the deformation behavior was simi-lar between these two models, both having 3m high. It should be mentioned that the acceleration response increased gradually towards the dam top and the deformation after shaking was relatively large near the foot of the slope. These observations were, to a great extent, successfully simulated by the numerical analysis.