Effect of Halabjah Earthquake on Al-Wand Earth Dam: Numerical Analysis

¹ Civil Engineering Department, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
² Water Resources Engineering Department, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

^a i.alwaily1901m@coeng.uobaghdad.edu.iq
^b Mays.thamer@coeng.uobaghdad.edu.iq

Abstract

The Halabja earthquake occurred on 12/11/2017 in Iraq, with a magnitude of 7.3 Mw, which happened in the Iraqi-Iranian borders. This earthquake killed and injured many people in the Kurdish region in the north of the country. There is no natural disaster more dangerous than earthquake, especially it occurs without warning, great attention must be paid to the impact of earthquakes on the soil and preparing for a wave of earthquakes. Numerical modeling using specific elements is considered a powerful tool to investigate the required behavior of structures in Geotechnical engineering, and the main objective of this is to assess the response of the Al-Wand dam to the Halabja earthquake, as this dam is located in an area that has been subjected to seismic activity recently. The modeling was done through the Geo-studio program, where the seepage was analyzed during the Al-wand dam using the Seep/w program. It was verified that the dam was safe against seepage failure and then moved to the QUAKE/W (a subprogram of GEOSTUDIO, which is used for liquefaction modeling of earthquakes and dynamic loading and determines the movement and increased pressures of pore water that arise due to earthquake vibration or sudden shock loads). The program was used to analyze the effect of the earthquake on the porewater pressure, effective stresses, and displacements. Also, it is not clear that the significant impact the earthquake has on these values. Finally, the Slope/w program was used to analyze the stability of the dam and to calculate the safety factor of the dam in two ways, and the results of the analysis show that the dam is considered safe under the influence of the tremor.