June 10, 2025
12:00 PM -2:00 PM Eastern
- Introduction (speaker, audience, purpose of webinar) (10 min)
- Why is void ratio important in Earth Dams
- Closely related to relative density and unit weight
- Review of phase relations in soil mechanics (10 min)
- Void ratio, porosity, water content, degree of Saturation
- Dry and Saturated 2-phase diagrams
- Density, unit weight, dry unit weight
- Void ratio is not a measured in lab/field, it is calculated (5 min)
- In sands we can obtain the minimum and maximum void ratios (emin, emax) (5 min)
- Earthen dam cross-sections, different soils (5 min)
- What are the ranges of void ratio in different soils (5 min)
- Q/A Period 1 (10 min)
- How does e relate to more complex soil parameters (10 min)
- Volumetric strain
- Consolidation
- Shear strength
- Deformation in dams is assessed by changes in void ratio (5 min)
- Primer on compression & consolidation theory (5 min)
- Engineering consequence - settlement of dam crest (5 min)
- Stability in dams is assessed by examining the available shear strength (5 min)
- Primer on shear strength (5 min)
- Engineering consequence - slope or foundation stability (5 min)
- Advanced interpretation of void ratio (10 min)
- Critical void ratio
- What occurs at a critical void ratio and effective stress
- Approaching steady state
- Static Liquefaction
- Q/A Period 2 (10 min)
