Studies on the stability of soil dams with the integration of geoelectrical and seismic geophysical methods.

• Grant number: 16/18080-9
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2017
• End date: February 28, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Geosciences - Geophysics
• Principal Investigator: Walter Malagutti Filho
• Grantee: Walter Malagutti Filho
• Host Institution: Instituto de Geociências e Ciências Exatas (IGCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Rio Claro. Rio Claro , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: César Augusto Moreira ; João Carlos Dourado

Abstract

Small damns serve municipalities, its agricultural industry, as well as medium and large industries, with the objective of regulating water use with a broad set of criteria and goals. Such structures must be robust and well designed, since they must endure high levels of water volume. This kind of work, due to its small size, is in many cases run by rural landowners or municipal authorities, thus, they don't rely on large budgets and often lack appropriate project designs. Further, a required and constant monitoring and maintaining of this type of structure is fundamental to ensure its endurance, to detect fissures, infiltrations, and leakages to prevent potential accidents, which would have catastrophic consequences. In this project, there will be an extension of a study already in course at UNESP's Department of Applied Geology, in two small-size dams, where geoelectric and geotechnical tests were conducted essentially with the goal of identifying water percolation zones. The studies will encompass seismic methods and different electrodes arrays which have not yet been used, for geoelectric survey in order to propose a methodology of integrated studies to identify the reliability of this kind of endeavor, as well as to be applied in other locations. (AU)