Time lapse geophysics can be highly useful to detect anomalous conditions since measurements are repeated and differences in the response of the dam can be monitored. The overarching goal of this project is to determine if seismic methods can be used to detect flaws in earth embankment dams, based on investigations on an experimental dam with known flaws. These designed flaws can be regarded as defects that are potentially dangerous to a real dam.
The experimental dam is equipped with 120 permanently installed hydrophone pressure sensors that are connected to portable seismographs. Several campaigns are being performed through the project period in which pressure and shear wave sources are activated and the seismic response recorded through the hydrophones. The acquired data will be analyzed by seismic processing tools, with research into adopting processing algorithms to the conditions set forth by the design of earth embankment dams.
