Location
St. Louis, Missouri
Presentation Date
13 Mar 1991, 7:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Abstract
The October 17, 1989 Lorna Prieta Earthquake shook a large number of earth and rockfill darns. There were actually more than 100 darns within 50 miles of the fault rupture associated with this event. Although more than half of these embankments were less than 60 feet in height, a number of major darns were strongly shaken. In general, the darns performed satisfactory with one major darn and one minor darn developing moderate damage. A small number also developed minor to moderate cracking which required repairs. The great majority, however, sustained no significant damage. Although this result is quite encouraging, this thought should be tempered by the fact that the reservoirs in many of these darns were quite low at the time of the earthquake. Thus, the 1989 Lorna Prieta Earthquake was not the full test of these structures.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
2nd International Conference on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 1991 University of Missouri--Rolla, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Harder, Leslie F. Jr., "Performance of Earth Dams During the Loma Prieta Earthquake" (1991). International Conferences on Recent Advances in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics. 11.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icrageesd/02icrageesd/session12/11
Included in
Performance of Earth Dams During the Loma Prieta Earthquake
St. Louis, Missouri
The October 17, 1989 Lorna Prieta Earthquake shook a large number of earth and rockfill darns. There were actually more than 100 darns within 50 miles of the fault rupture associated with this event. Although more than half of these embankments were less than 60 feet in height, a number of major darns were strongly shaken. In general, the darns performed satisfactory with one major darn and one minor darn developing moderate damage. A small number also developed minor to moderate cracking which required repairs. The great majority, however, sustained no significant damage. Although this result is quite encouraging, this thought should be tempered by the fact that the reservoirs in many of these darns were quite low at the time of the earthquake. Thus, the 1989 Lorna Prieta Earthquake was not the full test of these structures.
