Failure Mode Analysis of Cemented Sand and Gravel Material Dam

Cemented sand and gravel (CSG) is an elasto-plastic material, shows an apparent non-linear stress–strain relationship, and shows softening behavior after the stress peak. Based on the experimental results and the evolutional rule of the strength parameters of CSG material, a multi-linear ideal softening model based on the finite difference method was established for studying the mechanical properties of CSG dam, according to the numerical analysis results of a real dam project, the stress of dam with a trapezoid section is mainly compressive stress; the failure of CSG dam primarily refers to the buckling, the failure zone of the dam firstly occurs on the upstream dam surface and the dam toe, then the dam foundation surface, and finally the above zones connected together, thus forming a triangle block separated from the dam foundation. The failure mode of dam has the same trend between simulated and experimental results, the results show clearly that the multi-linear ideal softening model can be used to study safety of this type dam.