Hauser Lake Dam is located on the Missouri River about 29.0km from the city of Helena, Montana. The subsoil consisted of 20.1m thick gravel. The water was retained by a skin of steel plates supported by a steel framework that rested on large footings. The dam failed in 1908, one year after the beginning of the first filling. It was concluded that the presence of the footings produced a local concentration of flow, and spring erosion caused the failure of the dam judging from the fact that it did not fail immediately.
The FEM seepage flow analysis and stability analysis against seepage failure revealed that:
(1) In case that the installed filter does work, the local concentration of flow does not occur in the part between two footings.
(2) In case that the filter does not work, e. g. the fine soil particles are washed in the interstices of the filter, accumulate and gradually obstruct the flow after the water filling, the concentration of the flow occurs enough to cause seepage failure of the soil. In this case the part between the two footings becomes a critical state against Prismatic failure. The soil mass in this part is possible to move upward and collapse i. e., seepage failure of bulk-heave-type will occur. The plugging of the filter will be also caused by luxuriant growth of algae, deterioration and disintegration of soil particles due to drying and wetting, etc.
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