Yantubbs-48th.2008 (J.a. Charles) .The Engineering Behaviour of Fill Materials - Geot58-541

[doi: 10.1680/geot.2008.58.7.
539]
Introduction for 48th Rankine Lecture 19 March 2008
The 48th Rankine Lecture of the British Geotechnical

Association was given by Dr Andrew Charles at Imperial
College London on 19 March 2008. The following introduc-
tion was given by Hilary Skinner of Ramboll Whitbybird,
Chair of the British Geotechnical Association.
Having graduated in civil engineering at Imperial College in

1964 Andrew took a master’s degree in soil mechanics,
studying under Professors Skempton, Bishop and Gibson.
He then worked for Balfour Beatty gaining experience in
the design office and on site, including working on the
construction of Backwater dam in Scotland.
In 1967 he joined the geotechnics division of the Building
Research Establishment (BRE), having been interviewed by
Dr Cooling and the rest of his career has been spent at
Garston. He commenced work in the dams section for Dr
Arthur Penman with involvement in the instrumentation of
Scammonden dam. His PhD work involved the study of the
movements of the rockfill dam and included field, laboratory
and numerical studies carried out with Professor Bishop at
Imperial College and through BRE.
In addition to work on embankment dams, his research
topics have included the settlement of poorly compacted
waste fill materials and their performance as foundation
materials, and the effectiveness of ground improvement
techniques. A feature of Andrew’s work, which will be
reflected in the lecture this evening, is the pre-eminence of
field monitoring data, and particularly long-term data, in the
understanding of soil behaviour. In particular the understand-
ing of fill materials and ground improvement have benefited
from large-scale studies.
He has written more than 150 journal and conference Dr J. A. Charles
papers and three books; he is the author of Geotechnics for
building professionals (Charles, 2005) and has co-authored
Building on fill: geotechnical aspects (Charles & Watts,
2001) and An engineering guide to the safety of embankment BRE has continued in a consultancy capacity. During this
dams in the United Kingdom (Johnston et al., 1999). These time he has served as a member of an international review
form reference texts for professionals working in these panel for the safety evaluation of the 125 m high Trängslet
subjects and reflect the advancement in understanding that rockfill dam in Sweden and, together with Professor David
Andrew has contributed to the profession. Muir Wood, he carried out a review of the extensive research
Since 1996 Andrew has been a member of the ICE programme which was undertaken following the internal
Reservoirs Committee. He was convenor of the European erosion problems at the 183 m high WAC Bennett earth
Working Group on Internal Erosion in Embankment Dams embankment dam in British Columbia.
from 1993 to 2002. For over 20 years he was chairman of Andrew’s open-minded approach, seeking an understand-
the BSI committee for BS 1377 ‘Methods of test for soils ing of soil behaviour through a careful study of measured
for civil engineering purposes’. Through written papers and results has been an inspiration to many and I am honoured
in giving numerous lectures and keynotes, Andrew has to invite him to deliver the 48th Rankine Lecture.
disseminated the knowledge gained through careful research
to the UK and wider geotechnical communities.
He was awarded ICE’s George Stephenson Medal in 1985
and the Geotechnical Research Medal in 2000. He received REFERENCES
the British Geotechnical Society Prize for 1993, the Bateman Charles, J. A. (2005). Geotechnics for building professionals. Gar-
ston: Building Research Establishment.
Award of the British Dam Society in 2002 and the ICE
Charles, J. A. & Watts, K. S. (2001). Building on fill: geotechnical
Halcrow Prize in 2005. aspects. Peterborough: Construction Research Communications.
He obtained a DSc(Eng) degree in 1986 from the Uni- Johnston, T. A., Millmore, J. P., Charles, J. A. & Tedd, P. (1999).
versity of London and was elected a Fellow of the Royal An engineering guide to the safety of embankment dams in the
Academy of Engineering in 1999. United Kingdom. Garston: Building Research Establishment.
Following his retirement in 2002 his association with BRE report 363.
539
Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:
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Charles, J. A. (2008). Géotechnique 58, No. 7, 541–570 [doi: 10.1680/geot.2008.58.7.541]
The engineering behaviour of fill materials: the use, misuse and disuse
of case histories
J. A . C H A R L E S *
A number of developments in our modern world, includ- Un certain nombre de développements survenant dans
ing increasing urbanisation, major land reclamation notre monde moderne, y compris l’augmentation de
schemes and the disposal of vast quantities of solid waste l’urbanisation, la présence d’importants plans d’amén-
generated by mining and industrial activities, should agement du territoire ainsi que l’élimination de quantités
ensure that, for the foreseeable future, fills will be of considérables de déchets solides, produits par les exploi-
increasing significance in geotechnical engineering. An tations minières et les activités industrielles, devraient
engineered fill, which has been heavily compacted in thin assurer que, dans un avenir prévisible, les terrains rap-
layers under closely controlled conditions, should be a portés auront une importance toujours majeure en géo-
relatively uniform material and have behaviour that is technique. Un terrain rapporté spécialement aménagé,
easily predicted on the basis of average properties. In fortement compacté en couches de faible épaisseur et
contrast, poorly compacted fill dumped with little control dans des conditions contrôlées de très près, devrait être
in deep lifts is likely to be in a loose state and exhibit un matériau relativement uniforme, présentant un com-
great diversity in its geotechnical properties: the behav- portement facilement prévisible sur la base de propriétés
iour of such heterogeneous fill will bear little relation to moyennes. Par contraste, un terrain rapporté mal com-
average properties, and will be controlled largely by pacté, rempli de façon peu contrôlée avec des couches
zones of fill in a metastable state with unpredictable profondes est susceptible d’être peu compacté et de pré-
behaviour. Case histories that include field measure- senter une grande diversité de propriétés géotechniques :
ments—that is, quantitative data—are of particular value le comportement de ces terrains rapportés a très peu en
in gaining an understanding of the performance of fill commun avec ces propriétés moyennes, et sera déterminé
materials. Case histories of fill behaviour are examined en grande partie par des zones de remplissage à l’état
in four areas of practical interest to the geotechnical métastable et au comportement imprévisible. On examine
engineer: (a) the geotechnical behaviour of opencast des études de cas de comportement de terrains rapportés
mining backfills; (b) the performance of rockfill dams; dans quatre d’intérêt pratique pour le géotechnicien :
(c) the effectiveness of ground treatment; and (d) the (a) le comportement géotechnique de remblais de mises à
condition assessment of embankment dams. In each of ciel ouvert ; (b) le comportement de barrages en enroche-
these areas the lecture focuses on the results of long-term ment ; (c) l’efficacité du traitement du sol ; et (d) évalua-
field monitoring at a number of sites, from which some tion de l’état de barrages en remblai. Dans chacune de
general conclusions are drawn. Discernment is required ces catégories, la communication se penche sur les résul-
in the study of case histories, but despite shortcomings, tats de contrôles à long terme sur le terrain dans un
they provide a much needed counterweight to excessive certain nombre de sites, et à partir desquels elle tire des
theorisation. conclusions générales. L’examen d’études de cas nécessite
un certain discernement, mais en dépit de ses insuffi-
KEYWORDS: case history; compressibility; dams; deformation; sances, il fournit une compensation bien nécessaire à une
embankments; field instrumentation; ground improvement; tendance excessive aux grandes théories.
monitoring; rockfill; settlement; time dependence
INTRODUCTION exaggeration can establish an important point, and biogra-

Importance of case histories phies—that is, accounts of the lives of real people—can give
Quotations from great geotechnical men of the past have an insight into the human condition at a particular time and
often been included in Rankine Lectures. In a deviation from place that a general historical narrative, which is likely to be
this precedent, the following quotation is from a nineteenth- heavily biased by the preconceived ideas of the historian,
century prime minister. Benjamin Disraeli wrote: may fail to do.
Substituting ‘case history’ for ‘biography’, an analogous
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life
recommendation to a geotechnical engineer would be: ‘Study
without theory.
no theory: read nothing but case histories, for that is actual
In the nineteenth century, as in the twentieth and twenty-first ground behaviour undistorted by preconceived theoretical
centuries, not everyone was prepared to accept the advice of concepts.’ Such a recommendation would be unwise, for
a prime minister, and undoubtedly this particular recommen- several reasons.
dation was based on an oversimplification of the true
position. To appreciate life in a vanished age does require (a) The complexity of ground behaviour means that,
some general understanding of the times. However, an without some preconceived ideas and a basic con-
ceptual model of soil behaviour, it will not be possible
to make sense of field observations, which will remain
as unconnected facts. It is necessary to have a
Discussion on this paper closes on 2 March 2009, for further theoretical framework within which information from
details see p. ii. case histories can be assimilated.
* Building Research Establishment, UK. (b) As with biographies, case histories will not be full and
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542 CHARLES
impartial records of events, but inevitably will be uous history of geotechnical research at BRE has made it
influenced by the perspective of the writer in the possible to undertake long-term measurements of ground
selection and presentation of material. movements associated with many types of buildings and
(c) The subjects of case histories will tend to be the civil engineering works (Charles et al., 1996).
unusual, and the neglect of the ordinary case will mean
that they are unlikely to be representative.
Nevertheless, despite these limitations, case histories have a Significance of fill

vital role in geotechnical engineering, and are of far greater Mankind has been creating fill throughout recorded his-
importance than in other branches of civil engineering. tory. Some 4000 years ago, over a considerable period and
The overwhelming need for reliable experimental geo- for purposes that we cannot now determine, the 40 m high
technical data has long been appreciated. In 1881 Benjamin Silbury Hill in Wiltshire was carefully engineered in a series
Baker published a paper on ‘The actual lateral pressure of of six stepped horizontal layers. Its complex internal struc-
earthwork’. It might be questioned why the word ‘actual’ ture was created by concentric rings of chalk block walls,
was included in the title. Would not papers on lateral earth which together with radial walls, formed compartments that
pressures always deal with ‘actual pressures’? A perusal of were infilled with chalk rubble. Cross-sections of some
technical papers from Baker’s time up to our own day will engineered fills constructed during the last 4000 years are
soon expose the error of such a naı̈ve notion. Baker deplored shown in Fig. 1, and details are provided in Table 1.
the lack of experimental data, because it meant that ‘indivi- It is a sad reflection on human ‘progress’ that, 3000 years
dual judgement has to be exercised in each instance’, and he after the building of Silbury Hill, William the Conqueror
reminded his readers that Professor Rankine (1864) con- was throwing up mounds of earth, in what by then had
cluded the section on earth pressure in his Manual of civil become England, on which to build crude fortifications for
engineering with the following warning: ‘There is a mathe- military purposes that are only too easy to recognise. In
matical theory of the combined action of friction and adhe- 1069 a 15 m high mound was built on low-lying ground
sion in earth; but for want of precise experimental data its adjacent to the river in York to facilitate the subjugation of
practical utility is doubtful.’ The same comment could be the north of England. The mound was built in horizontal
made about the use of any numerical soil model which lacks layers of fill comprising stones, gravel and clay. Initially the
experimental data to confirm its validity. mound provided a base for a timber structure; the stone
Fifty-five years after Baker’s paper was published, the tower known as Clifford’s Tower was built on the mound in
great need for field data was stressed by Karl Terzaghi the middle of the thirteenth century. Major cracking of the
(1936) in his presidential address to the First International tower occurred in 1315–16 during severe floods, which
Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering softened the fill.
when he affirmed that: It was only in the nineteenth century, in the great age of
embankment dam building, that earthworks as high as Sil-
. . . successful work in soil mechanics and foundation bury Hill were again constructed in England. In the twen-
engineering requires not only a thorough grounding in
theory combined with an open eye for the possible sources
of error, but also an amount of observation and of Clifford’s Tower Mound
measurement in the field far in excess of anything
attempted by the preceding generations of engineers. Silbury
Hill
The importance of making field measurements was also
recognised by Leonard Cooling (1945) of the Building Re-
search Station, which later became the Building Research
Establishment (BRE), when speaking at the Institution of Dale Dyke Dam
Civil Engineers in June of that year:
As regards the future development of soil mechanics, I Brianne
think the emphasis needs to be placed on the more Dam
practical engineering research side of taking measurements
and observations of full-sized structures and constructional
work and of linking these with the properties of the soil
strata at the site. Laboratory tests and theoretical
considerations, vital as they are, must be related to field
experience.
In his Rankine Lecture, Cooling (1962) again stressed the
importance of field measurements. As a diagnosis of what
was needed and a recommendation of the direction that 0 50 m
geotechnical engineering should take, the comments of Scale
Terzaghi and Cooling showed great insight, but when Terza-
ghi added a word of prophecy to the effect that ‘the centre
Nurek Dam
of gravity of research has shifted from the study and the
laboratory into the construction camp where it will remain’,
he proved to be overly optimistic.
The most valuable case histories are those where field
measurements have been used to monitor the geotechnical
performance of structures over their working life, not just
during construction. Such case histories are relatively rare,
because long-term monitoring projects are expensive and
require continuity over a lengthy period. The long, contin- Fig. 1. Some engineered fills, 2000 BC to AD 2000

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THE ENGINEERING BEHAVIOUR OF FILL MATERIALS 543
Table 1. Engineered fills 2000 BC to AD 2000
Structure Location Purpose Date built Height: m Volume: Surface area:

106 m3 ha
Silbury Hill Wiltshire, England Unknown pre-2000 BC 40 0.25 2

Clifford’s Tower Mound York, England Military 1069 15 0.04 0.4
Dale Dyke Dam Sheffield, England Retain water 1864 29 0.4 4
Brianne dam Llandovery, Wales Retain water 1971 90 2.0 7
Nurek Dam Tajikistan Retain water 1980 300 58 60
Chek Lap Kok Airport Hong Kong Platform for airport 1996 25 194 1248
tieth century fills were placed on an unprecedented scale to installed during construction in embankment dams
construct embankment dams and road embankments, to form (Penman & Charles, 1973a, 1982). Descriptions of the
sites for buildings by infilling excavations, and in other instrumentation can be found in references cited in the
forms of land reclamation. In the late twentieth century the text.
90 m high Brianne Dam, which is the highest dam in Great
Britain, was built in Wales. Elsewhere in the world much
higher embankment dams have been constructed: the 300 m Scope of the lecture
high Nurek Dam, which was built in the old Soviet Union, Having emphasised the growing significance of fill and
is the highest dam in the world. the importance of case histories, it is appropriate to move
These engineered fill structures are quite small compared from general comments to particular case histories of fill
with the vast quantities of non-engineered fills being dumped behaviour in four areas of practical interest to the geo-
as mining, industrial, chemical, building, dredging, commer- technical engineer:
cial and domestic wastes. The total volume of mining waste
(a) the geotechnical behaviour of opencast mining backfills
currently produced annually in the world is probably of the
(b) the performance of rockfill dams
order of 10 billion cubic metres (10 3 109 m3 ). This not
(c) the effectiveness of ground treatment
only dwarfs the volumes of engineered fill used on the
(d ) the condition assessment of embankment dams.
largest dam projects, but is also greatly in excess of the 194
3 106 m3 placed in the massive land reclamation works for Since these are all large subjects that cannot be dealt with in
Chek Lap Kok Airport in Hong Kong. a comprehensive manner, each section focuses on the results
of BRE field monitoring at a number of sites, from which
some general conclusions are drawn.
Use and nature of field measurements
In studying case histories of fill behaviour that include
field measurements, three basic questions need to be ad- GEOTECHNICAL BEHAVIOUR OF OPENCAST MINING
dressed: What can be obtained from field measurements? BACKFILLS
What types of properties or behaviour should be measured? In 1949 the Building Research Station (now BRE) pub-
How can field measurements be made? lished Digest No. 9, Building on made-up ground or filling,
which stated that
(a) Benefits of field measurements. The most important
Suitable sites for new buildings and estates in industrial
benefit for those responsible for the design, construction
areas are becoming more difficult to find and it is more
and subsequent performance of an instrumented struc-
frequently necessary to build on made-up ground or filling.
ture is that its behaviour can be better assessed.
Assuming that the case history is made publicly The passing of nearly 60 years has not invalidated this
available, the measured behaviour can also provide a statement, but the qualifying phrase ‘in industrial areas’ is
benchmark for use in calibrating the behaviour of now no longer needed. Opencast mining has been a major
similar structures. The monitoring results also should producer of deep fills whose geotechnical behaviour is of
enhance the general understanding of geotechnical critical importance when restored opencast sites are consid-
behaviour. ered for building development. The principal practical inter-
(b) Geotechnical properties and behaviour to be monitored. est concerns the potential for long-term settlement of the
In different situations, pore water pressure, total stress, backfill. Where use of a restored site for building purposes
vertical and horizontal displacement and strain may be is foreseen prior to backfilling, the fill should be placed in
measured. Settlement is often the simplest parameter to layers and heavily compacted to an appropriate specification
measure, and in many cases it is the most critical under controlled conditions: such an engineered fill should
performance criterion. be reasonably uniform, with a potential for settlement that is
(c) Instrumentation and equipment. Reliable and accurate both limited and predictable. Where such a future use is not
field measurements on large civil engineering sites are foreseen, or was ignored and backfilling was carried out
difficult to achieve, requiring not only considerable with little control and without systematic compaction, the
skill, experience and perseverance in difficult condi- situation is very different.
tions, but also significant expenditure. In the case
histories that are presented here, surface settlement has
generally been measured using precise levelling techni- Creep settlement soil model
ques, but in some situations a theodolite has also been Early work on the settlement of fill was carried out at
used. Subsurface movements have been monitored using BRE by Meyerhof (1951), who, from a literature review,
magnet extensometers installed in boreholes in opencast presented the long-term creep settlement data shown in Fig.
mining backfills (Marsland & Quarterman, 1974; 2. Although the settlement of the fill materials varied from
Charles et al., 1977) and horizontal plate gauges 30% for domestic refuse to less than 1% for compacted

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544 CHARLES
Time since fill placement: years
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2
3 1. Well-compacted,
4
Settlement as percentage of height of fill

well-graded soil
5
2. Medium-compacted
5
rockfill
10
3. Lightly compacted
15 clay and chalk
20 4. Uncompacted sand
5. Uncompacted clay
25
6. Well-compacted
6
30 mixed refuse
Fig. 2. Settlement of fills (after Meyerhof, 1951)
rockfill, the creep rate of all the fills diminished with time, ranged from 0.2% to 1.1%, where Æ is the compression
leading to the conclusion that, if fill is left long enough, the occurring during one logarithmic cycle of time. This behav-
rate of settlement of the ground surface will become negli- iour is similar to the secondary compression of clay soils.
gible. This comforting conclusion suggests a simple solution The value of Æ was not related to the type or strength of the
to developing a filled site: leave the site for long enough parent rock, the form of dam construction (e.g. the position
and significant settlement will cease. But is this so, and if it of the watertight element), or the embankment height. The
is so, for how long must the site be left? significant factor was the method of placement of the rock-
For many rockfill dams in the United States, Sowers et al. fill. The greatest Æ values were obtained where rockfill had
(1965) found an approximately linear relationship between been dumped, whereas in the dam with the smallest Æ value
crest settlement and the logarithm of time that had elapsed the rockfill had been compacted by rolling while being
since the middle of the construction period, as shown in Fig. sluiced. In all these dams the upstream location of the
3. The values of the creep compression rate parameter Æ watertight element meant that crest settlement would be little
affected by changes in stress in the rockfill embankment due
Time from middle of construction period: years to fluctuations in reservoir level or the consolidation of a
0·5 1 2 5 10 20 35 low-permeability core.
0
For most types of fill there is a linear relation between
Lewis Smith creep compression and the logarithm of time that has
elapsed since the load was applied, and a simple settlement
Crest settlement as percentage of height of embankment
model can be derived for self-weight creep: that is to say,

the settlement that occurs when stress and moisture condi-
tions do not change, which can be expressed by the equation

t2
0·5
Dix ˜s ¼ Æ H log (1)
River t1
where ˜s is the settlement of fill of height H between times

t1 and t2 after fill placement, and Æ is the vertical compres-
sion occurring during one logarithmic cycle of time (e.g.
Nantahala
between 1 and 10 years since fill placement).
Since this simple settlement model is based on self-weight
1·0 creep, it might seem appropriate for estimating the settle-
ment of the shallow foundations of low-rise buildings where
the extra loading imposed by the buildings is often of little
significance. As shown by equation (2), the creep settlement
soil model indicates that the rate of settlement of the ground
surface will be proportional to the depth of the fill and
inversely proportional to the length of time that has elapsed
1·5
since the fill was placed, such that
˜s ÆH
¼ 4:34 mm=year (2)
Dam Date Height: m Type Rockfill α: % ˜t t
Dix River 1925 84 UD Dumped limestone 1·1 where Æ is in %, ˜s/˜t is the rate of settlement in
millimetres per year, H is the height or depth of fill in
Nantahala 1942 78 SC Dumped graywacke 0·7
metres, and t is the time in years that has elapsed since fill
Lewis Smith 1961 97 SC Compacted sandstone 0·2 placement.
Not only does the creep rate diminish with time, it also
Fig. 3. Settlement of three USA rockfill dams (derived from does so in an orderly and, provided the magnitude of the
Sowers et al., 1965): Æ, creep compression rate; UD, upstream parameter Æ is known, predictable way. Kilkenny (1968)
deck; SC, upstream-sloping core quoted Æ ¼ 0.74% for an opencast mining backfill at

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Chibburn in Northumberland, and data presented by Lange test in a borehole at the site of the lagoon indicated a fill
(1986) suggested that, for backfills in the Rhenish brown permeability greater than 104 m/s.
coal area, typically Æ ¼ 0.5% to 1.0% for backfills less than Following restoration of the site in 1973, the settlement of
100 m high, with greater values for deeper fills. the backfill was monitored throughout a 19-year period
(Charles et al., 1977, 1984, 1993). The location of five
magnet extensometers (gauges A9, B2, C11, D1 and D15)
Settlement of opencast mining backfills and five traverses of surface settlement stations (A, B, C, D
Long-term monitoring of settlement has been carried out and E) are shown on the plan of the site in Fig. 4. Details
by BRE at several restored opencast mining sites to investi- of the ground conditions are given in Table 3.
gate the behaviour of the backfills and their suitability for The surface settlement measured by precise levelling at
building developments. Information about fill properties is various locations between 1973 and 1992 is shown in Fig. 5.
given in Table 2, but, since the fills are heterogeneous and The largest settlement, 0.8 m, was measured at surface
at some locations contain large boulders, the values for the settlement station E12 (Fig. 5(b)), and particularly small
geotechnical properties that are quoted can at best only be settlements, 0.1 m, were measured at gauge C11 (Fig. 5(a)),
regarded as reasonably typical. A crucial issue in the inves- which was at the site of the lagoon, and at gauge D1 (Fig.
tigation was to examine the validity of the creep settlement 5(b)),where the fill had been temporarily preloaded by a
model, which describes the settlement that occurs when spoil heap. The special circumstances at the locations of
stress and moisture conditions do not change, bearing in C11 and D1, together with variations in the age and depth
mind that most poorly compacted, partially saturated fills of the fill across the site, provide an explanation for some of
undergo a reduction in volume when inundated or sub- the large differences in settlement, but by no means all of
merged for the first time, which is commonly termed them. Furthermore, when settlement is plotted on a logarith-
collapse settlement or collapse compression. mic timescale, as shown in Fig. 6, a pattern of behaviour is
Instrumentation could be installed and monitoring com- revealed that is remarkably different from the linear relation-
menced only when fill placement was complete. Precise ship between settlement and logarithm of time since fill
levelling of surface settlement stations was combined with
settlement observations at depth within the fill using settle-
ment gauges consisting of magnet extensometers installed in Traverse of surface
settlement stations
vertical boreholes. Groundwater levels also were monitored. Borehole settlement gauge
N
Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Horsley C

C11
Backfilling took place between 1961 and 1970 at Horsley Lagoon
opencast coal mining site, near Newcastle. The fill is Overburden heap
composed principally of mudstone and sandstone fragments, Pump
D1
with mudstone predominating. Boulders occupy less than B2
D
E
10% of the backfill. In the upper part of the workings B
excavation of the overburden was carried out by face Oldest D15
A9
fill Most recent
shovels, and backfilling was by end tipping from dump A
fill
trucks; in the lower part excavation was by dragline. There
was no systematic compaction of the fill, which has a
maximum depth of 70 m. During opencast operations there 500 m
Scale
had been a lagoon at one location, and another part of the
site had been preloaded with a 30 m high spoil heap. A field Fig. 4. Plan of Horsley opencast coal mining site
Table 2. Opencast mining backfills
(a) Coarse backfills
Location Fill type Silt and rd : w: % rs : n: % Va: %

clay: % Mg/m3 Mg/m3
Horsley Mudstone and sandstone 10 1.70 7 2.54 33 21

Blindwells Mudstone and sandstone 20 1.56 7 2.45 38 23
Tamworth Clay with shale fragments 45 1.78 9 2.62 32 16
(b) Clay backfills
Location w: % wP : % wL : % cu : kPa
Mean Range
Ilkeston 19 12–25 23 41 150

Corby 18 7–28 17 28 100
The table presents typical values of geotechnical properties to give an indication of fill type, but it
should be noted that the most significant property of these non-engineered fills is their heterogeneity.
rd , dry density; rs , particle density; n, porosity; Va , percentage air voids; w, water content; wP, plastic
limit; wL, liquid limit; cu , undrained shear strength.

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546 CHARLES
Table 3. Ground conditions in opencast mining backfill at Horsley
Gauge Ground level: Rockhead: Fill depth: Fill date Inundated Settlement: m Fill condition
mAOD mAOD m depth: m
1974–1977 1973–1992†
A9 98.6 38.0 60.6 1961 46 0.31 0.40 Oldest

B2 101.8 38.7 63.1 1964 45 0.33 0.50 Deepest
C11 94.9 49.2 45.7 1965 35 0.06 0.11 Lagoon
D1 108.1 52.6 55.5 1966 31 0.10 0.10 Preloaded
D15 119.2 72.7 46.5 1970 11 0.15 0.31 Most recent
E12‡ 115.8 68 48 1966 17 0.35 0.79 Intermediate age
Period during which the groundwater level rose.
† Total monitoring period.
‡ No magnet extensometer at E12, but listed because maximum settlement recorded at this location.
1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 Time since fill placement: years
0 5 10 20 30
0
100
C11
C11
200
Surface settlement as percentage of depth of fill

300 D15
A9 0·5
400
Settlement: mm
(a)
B2
0
100
D1
1·0
200
300
400
1·5
500 E12
B2
600
700 Fig. 6. Long-term surface settlement of opencast backfill at

E12 Horsley with time plotted on a logarithmic scale
800
(b)
The settlement at depth within the fill at gauge B2 for the
Fig. 5. Long-term surface settlement of opencast backfill at entire monitoring period is shown in Fig. 7. The numbers in
Horsley, 1973–1992 (after Charles et al., 1993) brackets in Fig. 7(a) are the depths below ground surface of
the various magnet markers. Fig. 7(b) shows the rate at
placement that the simple creep model would suggest and which the groundwater rose up through the backfill. It was
which Sowers et al. observed (Fig. 3). during the three-year period in which the groundwater level
The crucial factor is that it was necessary to dewater the rose that large movements occurred.
site during opencast mining, and pumping continued for In Fig. 8 the same data for gauge B2 are presented in
some time after the completion of backfilling, keeping the terms of vertical compression. In Fig. 8(a) the vertical strain
water table below the level of the fill over much of the site. at different depths within the backfill (e.g. between magnet
During this period settlements were very small. When pump- markers 7 and 8) is plotted against time, and Fig. 8(b) shows
ing stopped in 1974 the water table rose 34 m, reaching a the dates by which the groundwater had risen to the levels
new equilibrium level in 1977. During this three-year period of the different magnet markers (e.g. May 1975 for magnet
large movements occurred. Table 3 lists the surface settle- marker 7 and February 1976 for magnet marker 8). The
ment measured at the gauges, first during the three years depths of the magnet markers within the fill are shown in
(1974–1977) that the groundwater level rose, and second Fig. 8(c). It can be seen that, as the water table rose,
during the whole of the 19-year monitoring period (1973– settlement took place at the depth where this rise was
1992). The large arrows in Fig. 6 indicate the periods when occurring. Collapse compressions locally were almost 2%,
the water table was rising through the fill, and show the although the average compression measured over the full
critical role of the submergence of the fill in causing depth of inundated backfill was smaller than 1%.
collapse compression, although an increased rate of settle- Despite a clear link between surface settlement and col-
ment was noticeable for several years after the water table lapse compression on inundation, Fig. 9 reveals not only a
had reached an equilibrium level. The differences in the age distinctly non-uniform distribution of vertical compression
of the fill when subjected to a rise in groundwater level are with depth at gauge B2, but also a large compression
due principally to the different dates at which the various occurring above the water table. The distribution of settle-
locations were backfilled. ment with depth at gauges C11 and D1 in Fig. 10 confirms

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1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992
0 overconsolidated and stiff, and at some depths there was
4 (49·1 m)
some heave. It is more surprising that the relatively fine-
grained, soft, wet lagoon fill at C11 should not settle much,
100 6 (37·0 m) but before the rise in groundwater level, the settlement rate
at C11 was greater than in the other parts of the site.
8 (25·8 m) Monitoring only commenced eight years after fill placement
Settlement: mm
200 was completed at C11, and it is likely that there was large
settlement in the early years when excess pore pressures
9 (19·7 m) were dissipating.
300 Although the rise in groundwater level had a major influ-
ence on settlement behaviour, there were large variations in
collapse compression as fill was submerged at gauges A9,
400 10 (13·8 m) B2 and D15, as seen in Fig. 11, where it could have been
expected that similar behaviour would be observed. The
heterogeneity of the fill has effectively masked any correla-
13 (0 m)
500 tion between collapse compression and vertical stress in the
stress range 250 to 800 kPa.
(a)
0 13 Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Blindwells

Excavation at Blindwells opencast coal mine near Edin-
burgh began in 1978, and backfilling was carried out using
10
10
draglines, face shovels and end tipping. The fill has a maxi-
Groundwater level mum depth of 60 m, and comprises mudstone, siltstone and
20 9 sandstone. A 1.4 km section of the Tranent bypass trunk
road was to be built across the site and, to reduce settlement,
Depth: mm
8
30
the top 16 m of the backfill was systematically compacted
on the line of the road. Fill on either side of the road
6 corridor did not receive any systematic compaction. The
40 typical density of the uncompacted fill is given in Table
2(a). The whole of the Blindwells opencast site was dewa-
4 tered prior to the start of excavation, and the water table
50
was held down below the maximum excavation depth.
Magnet extensometers were installed in August 1984.
60 Fill During the first 13 years of monitoring 0.5 m settlement
was measured in fill that had not been systematically
1 Bedrock
(b)
compacted and 0.2 m where the upper zone had been
compacted (Watts & Charles, 2003). Typical Æ values in the
Fig. 7. Relationship between settlement at different depths in uncompacted fill were about 1%. In 1997 the groundwater
the fill and rise in groundwater level at gauge B2, Horsley, level began to rise, and there was an increase in surface
1973–1992 (after Charles et al., 1993) settlement of 0.3 m during the period in which the ground-
water level rose by 15 m. Most of this settlement can be
1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 related to a vertical compression of 1.4% in the submerged
⫺0·5
(a) fill, as seen in Fig. 12. Clearly, the long delay between fill
placement and the rise in groundwater level did not signifi-
0
cantly reduce collapse potential.
Vertical compression: %
6–7
⫹0·5 13 GL
7–8
12 5–6
11 Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Tamworth
⫹1·0
10
9
Backfilling at an opencast coal mining site at Tamworth
8
9–10
in the English Midlands was completed in 1972. The
63 m
7
6
Fill
8–9 excavation was backfilled mainly by scrapers, with some end
⫹1·5 5
4 tipping, and the maximum depth of fill was 32 m. The fill
3 (c)
2 was composed of clay and shale fragments, and the site was
⫹2·0
1 Bedrock
restored with a sloping ground surface. Monitoring of
ground movements and water levels within the fill com-
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 (b)
menced in 1977 and continued until surcharge operations
Fig. 8. Vertical strain and groundwater level at gauge B2, began in 1995, prior to development of the site for housing
Horsley, 1973–1979 (after Charles et al., 1993) (Charles & Burford, 1987; Watts & Charles, 2003).
In Fig. 13 the settlement measured within the deepest part
of the backfill is shown in relation to the change in ground-
that settlement has been particularly small over the 19-year water level within the fill. Surface settlement between June
monitoring period at both these gauges compared with the and December 1977 was small, equivalent to a creep rate of
settlement monitored at B2 (Fig. 9). Settlement attributable about 10 mm per year. In early 1978 the rate of creep
to the rise in groundwater level was very small in the wet increased significantly, and a further 40 mm of settlement
fill at C11 and in the preloaded fill at D1 (Table 3). The fill occurred during the following two years. During 1980 a
that had been preloaded with a 30 m high surcharge of fill at substantial rise in the rate of settlement was recorded, and
gauge D1 could be expected to settle least, as the fill is by the beginning of 1983 about 250 mm of settlement had

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548 CHARLES
Settlement: m Vertical compression: %
0 0·1 0·2 0·3 0·4 0·5 0 1 2 3
0
Depth below ground level: m 20
Rise in
groundwater
level
40
60
Fig. 9. Settlement and vertical compression against depth at gauge B2, Horsley
Settlement: mm 1000
100 200 0 100 200
0 10 11
10
9
D1
9
10 8 800
Depth below ground level: m
7
20
7
6
C11
Vertical stress: kPa
600
5 6
30
4 5
40 3 400
4
2 3
50 1
2
1 200
Fig. 10. Comparison of settlement with depth at gauges C11

and D1, Horsley
0
0 1·0 2·0
occurred. Surface settlement then continued at a rate of Collapse compression: %
almost 40 mm per year for the next 10 years.
Such movements are greatly in excess of any anticipated Fig. 11. Effect of submergence on Horsley backfill at settlement
creep settlement. It seems likely that groundwater was gauges A2, B9 and D15
penetrating into the opencast backfill from old unsealed
workings and then seeping through the fill. A rise in ground-
water level in 1994–1995 between magnet markers D and E collapse compression of opencast backfills that are predomi-
caused a significant increase in settlement at that depth, nantly clay has been investigated at sites at Ilkeston and
confirming that the backfill had some collapse potential. Corby, and some typical properties are given in Table 2(b).
Ground treatment by preloading with a 7 m high surcharge The stiff clay backfill at Ilkeston was placed by scrapers
of fill was carried out in 1995 and induced some 0.2 m of without any additional systematic compaction in 1959. There
surface settlement. was no water table within the backfill.
In 1973 a newly constructed block of eight two-storey
houses suffered some settlement when excavation for drains
Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Ilkeston began close to the north gable end and, following heavy
The opencast coal mining backfills at Horsley, Blindwells rain, further movement took place in the centre of the row
and Tamworth were essentially granular, as illustrated by the of houses. Soon all the houses in the block were affected,
typical properties given in Table 2(a). The susceptibility to and movements continued, although underpinning and pres-

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1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
in 24 h of filling the trenches with water, additional settle-
0 ments of up to 50 mm had been recorded, confirming that
water penetrating into the opencast backfill via surface
200
trenches could cause significant collapse compression. Fig.
Settlement: mm
C 14 shows the settlement measured at various depths within

E the fill at a magnet extensometer installed 1.5 m from two of
400 the trenches. Settlement occurred immediately water was put
G into the trenches, and the compression was located between
600 magnet marker ‘g’, 0.5 m below ground level, and magnet
marker ‘e’, 7 m below ground level. Six days after the start
I of the test 40 mm settlement had occurred, and the trenches
800 K
were backfilled. However, settlement continued at a signifi-
0 K
cant rate. A temporary increase in the rate of settlement in
Water level: m below ground level
5 late 1976 followed a period of heavy rainfall. The average

10 I vertical compression between magnet markers ‘g’ and ‘e’
15 over the whole monitoring period was 2.6%.
20
25 G
30
35 E Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Corby
40 At the Snatchill experimental site, the 24 m deep opencast
New
45
C inundation ironstone mining backfill had been placed by a large walking
50
55 Backfill dragline, so that the upper part of the backfill was composed
60 A Natural ground of large lumps or clods of stiff clay, with an undrained shear
strength of 100 kPa. There was no water table within the
Fig. 12. Settlement of opencast backfill at Blindwells, 1985–2003 backfill. Restoration had been completed in 1970, and in
(after Watts & Charles, 2003)
1975 three 50 m square areas were treated with different
forms of ground treatment prior to housing development.
Houses were also built on untreated ground (Charles et al.,
1981
1991
1982
1992
1977
1980
1984
1987
1990
1994
1978
1979
1983
1986
1988
1989
1993
1985
1995
1978; Burford & Charles, 1991).

0 B
One area was inundated via 1 m deep trenches at 10 m
C centres. The trenches were filled with water in February
1975 and backfilled in June 1975. The average surface
200
settlement induced by this inundation was 0.1 m. During the
Settlement: mm
D
first 10 days of the experiment about 90 m3 of water was
400 absorbed by the backfill, but comparatively little was ab-
sorbed subsequently. About half this volume was lost from
E
600 one trench. The largest settlement was measured at a magnet
extensometer that was only 2 m from this trench, and, as
F shown in Fig. 15, settlement continued after the trenches
800 H
had been backfilled. Prior to the inundation test the ground
0 H surface settled at about 1 mm per month, whereas during the
Water level: m below ground level
inundation test the fill surface settled 165 mm in 6 months,

F
principally as a result of vertical compression of 5.6%
10 between magnet marker ‘g’, 2.3 m below ground level, and
E magnet marker ‘f’, 4.5 m below ground level. In the 6 years
New subsequent to the end of the inundation test the fill surface
D inundation
settled 118 mm, mainly as a result of compression of 1.8%
20
between magnet marker ‘f’, 4.5 m below ground level, and
C
Backfill magnet marker ‘e’, 12.1 m below ground level. During the
B
following 9 years the fill surface settled 25 mm, principally
30 A
Natural ground
because of some small further compression between 4.5 m
and 12.1 m below ground level.
Fig. 13. Settlement of opencast backfill at Tamworth, 1977–1995
(after Watts & Charles, 2003)
1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981
0
d
sure grouting were carried out. A year after the houses were e h
completed, floor levels showed a maximum differential set- g
tlement of 0.14 m across the 9 m wide block, and the east
Settlement: mm
f
wall was 0.065 m out of plumb. The houses were never 100
f 12 m
e
Backfill
occupied, and the block was demolished in 1982, by which d
time there was an estimated total settlement of 0.3 m.
c
It was suspected that water penetrating into the fill Natural
gh b ground
through drain trenches had initiated collapse compression a
within the backfill, and a field inundation test was carried 200 Inundation
test
out (Charles & Burford, 1987). When 3 m deep trenches
were filled with water to a depth of 1.8 m, the rates at which
water levels fell in the different trenches varied from as little Fig. 14. Inundation test on opencast mining backfill at Ilkeston,
as 0.04 m/h (0.08 m3 /h) to as much as 1 m/h (2 m3 /h). With- 1974–1981 (after Charles & Burford, 1987)

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550 CHARLES
1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985
1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986
0
h
g 0
f
24 m e Backfill
d
100 20
Settlement: mm
c
b Natural
f a ground
40 Settlement
Settlement: mm
due to
200 deep
House mining
construction 60
Trenches
backfilled
Inundation test
gh
300 commenced 80
100
Fig. 15. Inundation test on opencast mining backfill at Corby,
1974–1986 (after Charles & Burford, 1987)
120
Settlement of colliery spoil at Coalville

140
The vulnerability of poorly compacted opencast mining 1980 1981 1982 1983
backfills to collapse compression on inundation is just one
aspect of their metastable condition—that is, an apparently Fig. 16. Settlement of colliery spoil at Coalville due to deep
mining, 1979–1983 (after Skinner et al., 1997)
stable condition that requires only a minimal disturbance to
initiate a change to a truly stable state. The change from a
metastable state to a stable state can involve a substantial
reduction in volume of the fill, and hence substantial settle- and, unless it can be established that the fill does not have
ment of the ground surface. The behaviour of colliery spoil significant collapse potential (e.g. a previous inundation or
at Coalville demonstrated that inundation is not the only wet placement of the fill should have greatly reduced, if not
phenomenon that can trigger a sudden reduction in the eliminated the potential for further collapse), there will be a
volume of a non-engineered fill in a metastable state risk that collapse settlement could occur during or subse-
(Skinner et al., 1997). quent to building on the site and, consequently, either deep
In a major land reclamation scheme some clay pits were foundations or ground treatment are likely to be required.
backfilled with freshly mined colliery spoil brought in lorries Collapse compression can result from a rising ground-
from a local colliery and tipped in lifts 1.5 to 2 m high. water level, but may also occur above the water table from
There was no compaction other than that provided by the downward infiltration of surface water or groundwater infil-
lorries running over the surface of each layer. Typically silt- tration into the backfill through the high wall of an opencast
sized particles constituted about 40% of the spoil. The holes mine. There is likely to be some time dependence in the
were dewatered before and during the filling operation, but response to wetting, particularly where inundation is due to
water levels were not controlled afterwards. A sudden in- downward percolation of water or in a clay fill. The field
crease in settlement in the middle hole in the spring of 1982 experiments have demonstrated that water infiltration from
was caused by deep mining. The total settlement monitored the ground surface via trenches can cause collapse compres-
by precise levelling at this location was 0.6 m, but most of sion in clay fill that continues for many years, and can be as
the mining subsidence occurred in the strata below the base large as 6%. The non-uniform response to inundation at
of the backfill. A magnet extensometer measured the settle- different locations within clay fill indicated that it was not a
ment relative to the base of the backfilled hole, and this practical form of ground treatment.
showed that the large, deep-seated movement in the under- The engineering behaviour of poorly compacted heteroge-
lying strata had triggered 60 mm of compression in the neous fills is difficult to predict, and may bear little relation-
backfill, as shown in Fig. 16. ship to average values of geotechnical properties. Settlement
The colliery spoil was also susceptible to collapse com- that damages buildings will be largely a function of the most
pression on inundation. At one location in the south hole, adverse properties encountered within the fill. Well-documen-
where there was 6.5 m of fill, 0.47 m of settlement occurred ted case histories, with long-term field measurements, provide
between November 1978 and January 1979, corresponding a helpful basis for assessing likely field performance.
to an average vertical compression of 7%, which was Significant creep movements can occur in poorly com-
associated with very heavy rainfall in December. pacted fill, and for mudstone/sandstone fill Æ values of the
order of 1% are typically observed. Creep movements will
generally be relatively small, unless the fill is very deep or
Conclusions has been placed quite recently. Where settlement predictions
The field data from the case histories of the long-term are based, either explicitly or implicitly, on the simple creep
behaviour of opencast mining backfills have provided a settlement model, building developments may appear to be
conclusive answer to the question ‘Can building develop- successful simply because inundation of the fill has not yet
ment safely take place on a deep opencast mining backfill, occurred. However, at some restored opencast sites and other
which has been placed without controlled systematic com- types of filled site large collapse settlements have occurred
paction, when a specified period of time has elapsed since subsequent to building development, with unpleasant conse-
fill placement?’ Poorly compacted opencast backfill placed quences for the buildings (Charles & Watts, 2001).
with little or no control is likely to be in a metastable
condition and, irrespective of the age of the fill, there is a
risk that some small disturbance, such as an increase in PERFORMANCE OF ROCKFILL DAMS
water content, will cause a significant reduction in volume. There is an instructive contrast between the performance
Collapse potential does not automatically reduce with time of poorly compacted opencast backfills and the behaviour of

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engineered fills placed in a heavily compacted state to form
embankment dams. While the engineered fills have proper-
ties that are much superior to those of the opencast backfills,
the water retaining structures that they form must meet more
complex requirements. It is important that unsatisfactory
behaviour in an embankment dam is detected at an early (a)
stage, and this is greatly assisted by a sound appreciation of
what constitutes normal satisfactory behaviour.
British rockfill dams

Deformations have been monitored by BRE at several (b)
rockfill dams. and basic information about the heavily
compacted rockfills used in these dams is summarised in
Tables 4 and 5. A determining factor in the behaviour of
these embankments is the nature and position of the im-
permeable or watertight element. The materials forming this (c) (d)
vital element of the dam are described as ‘impermeable’ and
‘watertight’, in contrast to the highly permeable rockfill; in Fig. 17. Cross-sections of rockfill dams showing location of
practice they have a finite, although very small, permeabil- horizontal plate gauges: (a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c)
ity. Winscar; (d) Megget
Scammonden Dam in West Yorkshire has an unusually
wide crest, which carries the M62 motorway (Fig. 17(b)).
The dam is founded on Carboniferous shales, and there is a impounding commenced in July 1969 and the reservoir was
deep grout curtain under the upstream-sloping clay core. full in June 1972. Four horizontal plate gauges were in-
The clay core was placed at a water content well above stalled on the major section of the dam during construction,
Proctor optimum, and is protected on both upstream and and the measurements of the deformations of the embank-
downstream sides by filter material (Penman & Mitchell, ment have been described by Penman et al. (1971).
1970). It was anticipated that its upstream location would Brianne Dam is situated in central Wales (Carlyle, 1973).
ensure that settlement of the clay core would not affect the It is founded on a Palaeozoic slatey mudstone, and the area
motorway. The rockfill is formed from Carboniferous sand- beneath the central clay core was grouted to a shallow depth.
stone, with three mudstone zones in the middle of the The upstream and downstream rockfill shoulders were
embankment. Prior to embankment construction, extensive formed by heavily compacting the plate-like fragments of
trials demonstrated that multi-row blasting produced a well- the slatey mudstone rockfill, with water added during place-
graded fill that could be placed and compacted to a high ment. The upstream slope is 1 vertical in 2 horizontal, and
density, while ripping and single-row blasting were unsatis- the average downstream slope is 1 in 1.75, as shown in Fig.
factory (Williams & Stothard, 1967). The downstream slope 17(a). The clay core was placed wet of optimum water
is 1 in 1.8. The upstream slope is 1 in 3.1 close to the content, and is protected on both upstream and downstream
foundation and progressively steepens to 1 in 1.8 close to sides by transition and filter material. Embankment construc-
the crest; there is a weight block at the upstream toe. The tion was completed in November 1971, and reservoir im-
embankment was completed in September 1969. Reservoir pounding commenced immediately. The reservoir was full
Table 4. Field placement of rockfill
Dam Date built Height: m Rockfill Vibrating roller
Layer depth: m Number of passes Weight: t
Scammonden 1969 73 Sandstone/mudstone 0.9 5 11.5

Brianne 1971 90 Slatey mudstone 0.9 4 13.5
Winscar 1974 53 Sandstone 1.7 4 13.5
Marchlyn 1979 47 Slate 1.0 4 13.5
Megget 1981 56 Gravel 0.4 4 5.5
Roadford 1989 41 Sandstone/mudstone 0.45 8 9.1
Table 5. Field density of rockfill
Location rd : Mg/m3 w: % rs : Mg/m3 n: % Va: %
Scammonden 2.02 7 2.69 25 11

Brianne 2.35 3 2.75 15 7
Winscar 2.03 6 2.60 22 10
Marchlyn 2.25 4 2.81 20 11
Roadford 2.07 4 2.74 24 15
rd , dry density of fill; rs , particle density; n, porosity; Va , percentage air voids; w, water
content.

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552 CHARLES
by the beginning of January 1973. Three horizontal plate (Wilson & Evans, 1990). The rockfill was placed at a
gauges were installed on the major section of the dam relatively low water content (Table 5). Both upstream and
during construction, and the deformation measurements have downstream slopes are 1 in 2.25. Sandfill was placed next to
been described by Penman & Charles (1973b, 1973c). In the inspection gallery at the upstream toe of the dam to
1996 the spillway crest was raised by 1.0 m, and a concrete reduce differential settlement at this critical location. Im-
wall was inserted into the top of the embankment above the pounding commenced in October 1989, and first filling of
clay core to extend the watertight element to the underside the reservoir was completed in April 1991. The deflection of
of the crest road (Hughes, 1998). the upstream membrane was measured during reservoir
Winscar Dam (Fig. 17(c)) in west Yorkshire is founded on impounding using electro-levels installed by BRE (Tedd et
Millstone Grit sandstone that contains a little shale (Collins al., 1995).
& Humphreys, 1974). The heavily compacted sandstone
rockfill is from the same Carboniferous series as found at
Scammonden, and water was added to the rockfill during Construction deformations
placement. The upstream asphaltic concrete membrane or The compressibility of the rockfill materials was measured
facing was placed on the 1 in 1.7 upstream slope after in tests on samples heavily compacted in layers in 0.6 m and
embankment construction was completed. The downstream 1.0 m diameter oedometers. Rockfill with a maximum parti-
slope is 1 in 1.4. The deformation measurements obtained cle size of 125 mm was tested in the 1.0 m diameter
from three horizontal plate gauges installed on the major oedometer. Fig. 18 shows that the compressibilities of the
section of the dam during construction have been described rockfills from Brianne, Scammonden and Winscar dams
by Penman & Charles (1985a). Major leakage problems were were quite similar, but the gravel fill from Megget was much
encountered during first filling of the reservoir, and supple- less compressible.
mentary foundation grouting was carried out as well as Settlement occurs during rockfill placement owing to the
repairs to the asphaltic membrane. Although the crack in the self-weight of the fill. The vertical strains measured in the
membrane was only about the size of a matchbox, it caused downstream rockfill shoulders at Brianne, Scammonden and
serious leakage. The identification and repair of the asphaltic Winscar were quite similar, since the compressibility of the
concrete facing of the dam have been described by Routh rockfills measured in oedometer tests were not very differ-
(1988). During the early impounding period the reservoir ent. The deformations at Megget were much smaller, be-
level reached more than 80% of its maximum height, but cause the gravel fill was much less compressible. This
the reservoir was completely emptied in 1980 to permit difference is illustrated in Fig. 19, which shows the settle-
repairs to the asphaltic membrane. The first successful ment during embankment construction on the centreline of
complete filling of the reservoir was in 1981–1982, but the Scammonden, Winscar and Megget dams. Brianne is not
problems recurred in the 1990s. Further leakage investiga- included in the figure because the maximum construction
tions and repairs have been described by Wilson & Robert- settlement of 2.3 m was principally a function of the behav-
shaw (1998) and Carter et al. (2002); a geocomposite liner iour of the soft central clay core, not of the rockfill
was installed on the upstream slope in 2001. shoulders (Carlyle, 1973); the constructional horizontal
Megget Dam (Fig. 17(d)) in southern Scotland has a movements at Brianne induced by the lateral pressure from
central asphaltic core, which is supported by heavily com- the soft clay core at the interface between the clay core and
pacted, well-graded gravel shoulders (Gallacher, 1988). As- the granular filter are shown in Fig. 20.
phaltic concrete cores are sometimes referred to as Although the vertical strains at Brianne, Scammonden and
bituminous cores or diaphragms. The upstream slope is 1 in Winscar were quite similar, with a maximum of 3–4%
1.5, and the downstream slope steepens from 1 in 2.1 at the compression (Fig. 21), the pattern of horizontal strain at the
base of the dam to 1 in 1.5 at the crest. A 60 m deep grout dams was very different. The horizontal strains shown in
curtain was formed in the rock along the centreline of the Fig. 22 are for the upstream-downstream direction; horizon-
dam. The embankment was completed in October 1981, and tal strain along the axis of the dams was not measured. The
impounding commenced in May 1982. The reservoir reached clay cores at Brianne and Scammonden were placed wet of
top water level for the first time in January 1986. The rip- optimum water content and had high pore water pressures
rap on the steep upstream slope was damaged by severe and low effective stresses during construction. At the end of
storms at the beginning of 1984. Bituminous grouting was
carried out on the upper part of the slope in 1997 (Gallacher Vertical stress: kPa
et al., 1998). Three horizontal plate gauges were installed on 0 500 1000 1500
0
the major section of the dam during construction (Penman &
Charles, 1985b).
Marchlyn Dam in north Wales forms the upper reservoir M
of the Dinorwig pumped storage scheme (Baines et al.,
1983). The slate rockfill embankment was built on a glacial
2
moraine, and the upstream asphaltic membrane was placed
Vertical strain: %
over both the rockfill and the moraine, forming an impound-

ing structure with a total height of 72 m. Beneath the B
inspection gallery at the upstream toe a grout curtain
extends to a maximum depth of 120 m. First filling of the
4 S
reservoir was completed in December 1982. BRE developed
an inclinometer to measure deflection of the 1 in 2 upstream W
slope during reservoir impounding (Penman & Hussain,
1984).
Roadford Dam in south-west England has an upstream
6
asphaltic concrete membrane that forms the watertight ele-
ment (Duncanson & Johnston, 1988). The embankment was Fig. 18. Compressibility of rockfills measured in large oed-
built of low-grade sandstone and mudstone rockfill, which ometer: B, Brianne slatey mudstone; M, Megget gravel; S,
was excavated by face shovel loaders assisted by a ripper Scammonden sandstone; W, Winscar sandstone

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1·0
2 1
3
4
h/H
0·5 (a)
S
Me W
2 1
3
3
0 (b)
0 0·5 1·0
Settlement: m
Fig. 19. Construction settlement against height on centreline of 1

Megget, Scammonden and Winscar dams (after Charles & 2
3
Penman, 1988): h/H, ratio of height above foundation level to
maximum height of embankment 4
(c)
Top of
embankment
Fig. 21. Contours of constructional vertical strain (%):
(a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c) Winscar
80
70
60
0·3
50
Downstream movement 0·4
Settlement 0·5
40
0·6
0·3 0·2 0·1
30
20 (a)
10
Base of 0
embankment 0 0·5 1·0 1·5 0 0·5 1·0
Movement: m Movement: m 0·1 0 ⫺0·1
(a) (b) ⫺0·2
⫺0·2
Fig. 20. Construction movements at (a) core/fine filter interface 0 0
and (b) downstream slope at Brianne dam (after Penman & (b)
Charles, 1973b)
construction both dams had a pore pressure ratio (ru ¼ u/ªh) ⫺0·2
⫺0·4
as high as 0.7 at some locations in their cores. The clay 0
cores were much less stiff than the rockfill shoulders, and 0
the differences in embankment behaviour can be attributed
(c)
largely to the positions of the clay cores (Penman & Charles,
1973c; Charles, 1975). The horizontal strains show the major Fig. 22. Contours of constructional horizontal strain (%):
influence of the lateral thrust of the soft central clay core on (a) Brianne; (b) Scammonden; (c) Winscar
the whole of the downstream shoulder at Brianne, with a
maximum compression of a little more than 0.6%, and the
much more limited effect of the upstream sloping core on The stress–strain properties of rockfills measured in one-
the downstream rockfill at Scammonden owing to the width dimensional compression tests are generally non-linear, but
of the crest and the upstream location of the clay core. At the internal distribution of settlement during embankment
Winscar virtually the whole embankment cross-section has construction can be predicted with little error using a
negative horizontal strain (i.e. extension), with a maximum constant equivalent compressibility, and the maximum settle-
of just over 0.4% in the centre of the embankment (Penman ment occurring during construction can be related to the
et al., 1982). constrained modulus (D). Assuming that a large-diameter

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554 CHARLES
oedometer test accurately represents the one-dimensional
F
compressibility of the fill in the field, for fill placed over a 280
wide area, it can readily be shown that (Charles, 1976, U
1990)
E
For D ¼ a constant ¼ DªH :
!
ª H 2
smax ¼ 0:25 (3)
Dª H 260
D
:
For D ¼ k(v )0 5 :
!
ªH2
smax ¼ 0:195 (4)
Dª H
Elevation: m AOD
C
where smax is the maximum settlement during construction 240
of an embankment of height H, ª is the bulk unit weight of
the fill, and Dª H is the secant-constrained modulus for a
vertical stress v ¼ ªH. Fig. 23 shows that the measured
values of smax have mostly closely corresponded to equation
(4), which therefore can be used to give an initial prediction B
of construction settlement. This approach works reasonably
well because stress changes during construction generally 220
correspond to an increase in mean effective stress while the
principal effective stress ratio remains roughly constant, but
during reservoir impounding stress changes are much more
complex. A
200
Post-construction deformations
Subsequent to the construction of a rockfill dam, move-
ments will occur because of
0 100 200
(a) stress changes associated with reservoir impounding
Settlement during reservoir impounding: mm
(b) consolidation of a clay core
(a)
(c) creep compression in the rockfill.
Movements monitored during reservoir impounding illus- F
U E
trate the determining influence of the position and nature of D
the watertight element within the embankment. At Brianne
the continuing settlement of the crest was largely a function C
of the behaviour of the central clay core—that is, primary
B
consolidation due to dissipation of excess pore pressures
followed by secondary compression. The upstream fill was A
submerged during impounding, thus reducing the effective
stresses within the fill. While in theory this should cause the
rockfill to undergo a slight expansion or heave, in practice (b)
any small creep movements or collapse compression will
negate such a tendency. Fig. 24(a) shows that the points Fig. 24. Settlement during first filling of reservoir at Brianne
labelled U on the upstream slope settled a very similar dam (after Charles, 1987)
amount to monuments E and F on the downstream slope
during reservoir impounding, indicating that the rockfill had
little if any collapse potential. The location of these surface
1·0
settlement stations is shown in Fig. 24(b).
S
Because of its wide crest and upstream-sloping clay core,
W
much of the rockfill at Scammonden was not significantly
affected by either reservoir impounding or consolidation of
the clay core. The approximately linear relationship between
smax: m
Eqn (3) Eqn (4)

0·5 settlement and time elapsed since construction plotted on a
logarithmic scale is shown in Fig. 25 for different heights on
R the centreline of the dam. The line marked ‘c’ represents the
settlement of the crest of the dam, which corresponds to a
M value of Æ ¼ 0.17% for the full height of the embankment.
0 Where an embankment dam has a central flexible dia-
1 2 3 4 5
phragm of asphaltic concrete, reservoir impounding sub-
γH 2/DγH: m
merges the upstream fill, decreasing the vertical effective
Fig. 23. Maximum measured construction settlement, smax , as a stress, but the total horizontal pressure acting on the mem-
function of constrained modulus of rockfill derived from large brane increases. At Megget it was found that the increase in
oedometer test, Dª H : M, Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammon- horizontal thrust due to reservoir impounding was 0.29ªw hw ,
den; W, Winscar where ªw is the density of water and hw is the reservoir

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0
stress increases, but the principal effective stress ratio tends
to reduce. The modulus during first filling of the reservoir is
typically almost twice as large as that operating during
construction owing to the change in principal stress direction
during these two phases of loading.
100 Deformations due to first filling of the reservoir have been
Settlement: mm
monitored at three dams with upstream asphaltic mem-

branes: Winscar, Roadford and Marchlyn. At Winscar the
movements, which were measured using horizontal plate
gauges, are shown in Fig. 27(a). The maximum deflection
h/H during first filling was 0.2 m at just below half the height of
200
a 0·25
the dam. The maximum compressive strain normal to the
membrane was 1% near the toe of the dam (Fig. 27(b)).
b 0·64
Elastic finite element analyses were used to predict deforma-
c 1·00
tions during reservoir impounding with rockfill parameters,
based on the assumption that the bulk modulus had the same
300 magnitude during reservoir filling as it had during embank-
0·1 1 10
ment construction, and Poisson’s ratio was zero. Assuming
Time since end of construction: years
Poisson’s ratio to be 0.33 during construction, elastic theory
Fig. 25. Long-term settlement on the centreline of Scammonden led to the conclusion that the constrained modulus during
dam (after Charles, 1990): h/H, ratio of height above foundation impounding was twice as large as that during embankment
to maximum height of embankment construction (Charles & Penman, 1988). This approach gave
reasonable predictions of movements normal to the upstream
membrane except close to the crest of the embankment.
head at the location where the horizontal stress was meas- Deformations at the toe of an embankment can damage
ured. However, as shown in Fig. 26, the downstream deflec- an upstream asphaltic membrane, and the deflection of the
tion of the asphaltic diaphragm was very small owing to the upstream membrane was measured during reservoir im-
stiffness of the gravel fill. pounding near the toe of Roadford Dam using an electro-
At dams with upstream membranes the reservoir water level system (Evans & Wilson, 1994; Tedd et al., 1995).
applies a loading normal to the membrane. First filling of Prior to reservoir impounding, the deflection of the mem-
the reservoir causes major stress increases and embankment brane was estimated from the compressibility of the fill
deformations. Subsequent fluctuations in reservoir level af- materials measured in large oedometer tests. The analysis
fect the stresses in the rockfill in a similar way, but have a was based on assumptions similar to those used for the
smaller effect on embankment deformations, as the rockfill analysis of Winscar, except that, using a Poisson’s ratio of
is much stiffer under these reloading and unloading stresses. the rockfill during construction of 0.25, the ratio of con-
When the water load is transmitted to the rockfill immedi- strained modulus during impounding to that during construc-
ately beneath an upstream membrane the mean effective tion was 1.67. The measured and predicted deflections
normal to the upstream membrane are shown in Fig. 28.
There is some correlation between the maximum deflec-
D tion of an upstream membrane during first filling of the
reservoir (nmax ) and the maximum settlement during em-
bankment construction (smax ), as demonstrated in Fig. 29 by
the monitored behaviour of some international concrete face
rockfill dams (Charles & Penman, 1988) and three asphaltic
concrete upstream membrane dams where BRE made obser-
C4 vations. At Roadford the measurements of membrane deflec-
B5 0
18
100
16
0 120
140 80
60
40
Movement 20
scale
(a)
0 50 mm
A6
0·2
0·4
0·6
0·8
1·0 0·2
(b)
Fig. 27. Movements during reservoir impounding at Winscar

dam: (a) movement normal to upstream asphaltic concrete
Fig. 26. Vector movements at Megget dam during reservoir membrane (mm); (b) strain normal to upstream asphaltic
impounding (after Penman & Charles, 1985b) concrete membrane (%)

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556 CHARLES
The settlement of the crests of Brianne, Megget, Scam-
Rockfill monden and Winscar dams has been monitored for long
14 m periods following the end of construction. In Fig. 30 the
18 box sections housing E-Ls data are plotted as vertical strain. The vertical strain at
8 at 0·5 m long
10 at 1·0 m long Brianne is twice as large as that at Scammonden and
Winscar, reflecting the fact that at Brianne the consolidation
Drainage layer of the clay core is the dominant effect. At Winscar the extra
loading during reservoir impounding was a significant factor:
Sand waste 14 the increased rate of settlement that occurred between six
oe :m 12
fro mt 10
and a half years and nine years after the end of construction
ce 1
tan 8 was associated with the first full filling of the reservoir in
Dis 6
4
1981–1982 after it had been emptied in 1980 for membrane
2 repairs. At Scammonden the consolidation of the clay core
0 had only a minor effect on crest settlement.
0 Quite large crest settlement continued at a reasonably
20 Predicted deflection
constant rate for some time after reservoir impounding at
2
Roadford, with no sign of the steady reduction in settlement
40
m
3 rate observed at the other four dams. This additional settle-

:m
Date Res head: m

ment has been attributed to an increase in water content in
tion
60 1 November 1989 14·6

the embankment fill (Evans & Wilson, 1992). The crest
c
2 April 1991 33 (full)

efle
80 3 July 1994 32
settlement rate eventually reduced with time (Hopkins et al.,
D
2002); nevertheless, by May 2001 the crest had settled

100
535 mm since the end of construction, of which 425 mm
120 had occurred since impounding began, corresponding to
vertical strains of 1.3% and 1.0% respectively, which is
Fig. 28. Deflection of upstream asphaltic concrete membrane surprisingly large. Vaughan (1994a) estimated that a little
during reservoir impounding at Roadford dam (after Tedd et
al., 1995)
more than 1% collapse compression had occurred at a slow
rate.
Figure 31 shows the compressibility of two samples of
Roadford rockfill measured in tests in a 1 m diameter
0·2 oedometer. The properties of the two samples are given in
W
Table 6. Sample ‘a’ was heavily compacted at a relatively
high water content, and sample ‘b’ was less heavily com-
pacted at a lower water content. Until sample ‘b’ was
inundated the compressibility of the two samples was not
dissimilar, but when sample ‘b’ was inundated a collapse
R compression of 2.6% occurred. Sample ‘a’ was not inun-
dated, but as the initial air voids were only about 4% there
nmax: m
would not have been any collapse potential. The two dashed
lines for sample ‘b’ on the figure give estimates of the
0·1 behaviour of sample ‘b’ if it was not inundated at all and if
it was inundated before any load was applied. The initial
density and water content of sample ‘b’ were close to the
average field values (Table 6).
In Fig. 32 the crest settlement data for the five dams are
plotted using a logarithmic timescale. There is generally a
uam
cf
Ma Time since end of construction: years
0 5 10 15 20
0
0 0·5 1 M
smax: m
Fig. 29. Relationship between maximum normal deflection of

upstream membrane during reservoir first filling, nmax , and 0·2
maximum settlement during embankment construction, smax
(after Charles, 1990): uam, upstream asphaltic membrane; cf,
concrete face; Ma, Marchlyn; R, Roadford; W, Winscar S
s/H: %
0·4 W
tion went only part way up the upstream slope: the hollow
circle in Fig. 29 represents the maximum measured deflec-
tion, and the solid circle is the estimated maximum deflec- 0·6 B
tion on the assumption that the deflected shape of the
membrane at Roadford was similar to that measured at R
Winscar. The dashed line on the graph corresponds to a ratio
of nmax /smax ¼ 0.25, which would be expected if the con- 0·8
strained modulus controlling the deformation due to reser- Fig. 30. Post-construction long-term settlement of crests of
voir impounding was about twice as large as the modulus dams: B, Brianne; M, Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammonden;
controlling construction settlement. W, Winscar; s, crest settlement; H, height of embankment

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Vertical stress: MPa
0 0·5 1·0 1·5 linear relationship between vertical strain and log time for
0 Brianne, Megget, Scammonden and Winscar dams. This type
of relationship has been obscured at Roadford by ongoing
collapse compression.
The creep behaviour of rockfill can be evaluated in detail
from the internal deformation measurements made using the
Vertical strain: %
a
horizontal plate gauge system. At Scammonden much less
5 than one third of the long-term compression of the embank-
ment is located in the top third of the embankment (Fig.
25). Stress dependence of creep settlement is explored in
Fig. 33, where the measured distribution of long-term settle-
b ment with height within the embankments at Scammonden
Inundation and Winscar is compared with what would be expected if
10
(a) Æ was a constant and not dependent on vertical stress, or
(b) Æ was proportional to vertical stress. The results are
Fig. 31. Compressibility of Roadford rockfill measured in 1 m generally closer to the latter assumption than to the former.
diameter oedometer
Conclusions
Table 6. Properties of Roadford rockfill in 1 m diameter Field measurements have confirmed that carefully con-
oedometer tests and in the field trolled placement and compaction can produce rockfills with
relatively uniform geotechnical properties and predictable
rd : Mg/m3 w: % n: % Va: % behaviour. The case histories go some way towards establish-
ing benchmarks for normal behaviour of different types of
Test a 2.16 7.9 21 4 rockfill dam. The monitored movements give a good indica-
Test b 2.05 4.7 25 15 tion of the deformations likely to occur during successive
Field 2.07 4.4 24 15 stages in the life of a rockfill dam, and substantial depar-
tures from such behaviour in a dam could indicate the onset
rd , dry density of fill; w, water content; n, porosity; Va , percentage
of unsatisfactory behaviour.
air voids.
Although rockfill behaviour is not elastic and not linear,
movements during embankment construction can be pre-
dicted using simple linear elastic models. The limiting factor
Time since end of construction: years in making such predictions is not the sophistication of the
0·5 1 2 5 10 20 soil model used in the calculations, but rather the difficulty
0 of establishing representative soil parameters for a fill mate-
M
rial containing large rock fragments. Movements during
1·0
0·2
S
Scammonden
Winscar
0·4
W
Uniform creep rate

Heigth of crest above foundation
R B
Height above foundation
0·6
s/H: %
0·5
0·8
1·0
Creep rate
proportional to
vertical stress
1·2
0
1·4 0 0·5 1·0
Long-term settlement
Fig. 32. Post-construction long-term settlement of crests of dams Long-term crest settlement
with time plotted on a logarithmic scale; B, Brianne; M,
Megget; R, Roadford; S, Scammonden; W, Winscar; s, crest Fig. 33. Creep rate of sandstone rockfill at Scammonden and
settlement; H, height of embankment Winscar dams as a function of vertical stress

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558 CHARLES
reservoir impounding require more sophisticated analysis, mystique surrounding ground treatment methods, com-
since the loading applied to the dam by the reservoir water menting:
causes rotation of the direction of principal stress. Case
Nearly all the papers have been produced by contractors
histories that include long-term monitoring provide the only
specializing in these techniques and, not unnaturally, they
satisfactory basis for validating numerical models.
have concentrated on the successes obtained by their
Heavy compaction greatly reduces the compressibility,
methods. The failures, or at least the lack of apparent
deformability and creep movements of rockfills, but the
successful applications, have remained unrecorded. The
entire elimination of collapse potential may also require
result of this has been the growth of a certain mystique
appropriate watering of the fill. Heavily compacted rockfills
surrounding the techniques, and claims have been made on
of different geological origin may have very similar behav-
their ability to ‘strengthen’ ground which cannot always be
iour, but heavily compacted gravel fill was much less
substantiated when subjected to a critical review.
compressible than the sedimentary rockfills.
Post-construction deformations of rockfill dams occur
from a variety of causes, including reservoir loading, clay During the subsequent 30 years well-documented case his-
core consolidation and creep of the fill materials. Deforma- tories have had a substantial role in dispelling much of the
tions examined at different depths in regions of the embank- mystique, but poorly documented case histories can be
ments not seriously affected by reservoir fluctuations, and misleading. Case histories where a filled site has been
where the fill had no collapse potential, show that creep subjected to a particular form of ground treatment and
compression increased linearly with the logarithm of time subsequently used for building development can be easily
since the end of construction. The creep compression rate accumulated. The apparent absence of problems gives the
parameter Æ is stress dependent for these heavily compacted impression that an appropriate and adequate form of treat-
fills. ment has been applied. What is not known is how the
ground would have behaved if there had been no treatment.
Building development might have still been successful. In
some cases little may have been required from the ground
EFFECTIVENESS OF GROUND TREATMENT treatment and little may have been achieved. The problem
Where opencast backfill has been compacted in a manner arises where much is needed from the treatment. With fill in
similar to that used in the construction of rockfill dams, the a metastable state, it will only be known whether the ground
ground so formed usually should be suitable for building treatment has adequately dealt with this when, say, water
development. However, building development is often pro- from a leaking drain starts to saturate some of the fill.
posed on restored opencast mining sites where the fill has A parallel can be drawn with medical practice. It may
not been systematically compacted. The backfill could be seem surprising and indeed alarming that for centuries
excavated, any unsuitable material discarded and the remain- physicians made life-and-death decisions concerning the
der put back as an engineered fill to a suitable specification treatment of their patients on the basis of little, if any,
under close supervision (Trenter & Charles, 1998). However, scientific evidence. It is only in the last 60 years that
where the fill is deep this approach is unlikely to be either ‘evidence-based medicine’ has come to the fore using rando-
economic or practicable, and piled foundations are also mised controlled trials. Civil engineers do not usually have
unlikely to be an economic solution for low-rise buildings the resources to carry out randomised controlled trials, but
(Charles & Burland, 1982; Charles, 2005). well-documented case histories with appropriate long-term
The question therefore arises as to the extent to which in monitoring provide an alternative route to establishing ‘evi-
situ ground treatment can convert a non-engineered opencast dence-based ground treatment’. A controlled trial of ground
mining backfill into an engineered fill with suitable proper- treatment methods was carried out on the opencast ironstone
ties for buildings on shallow foundations. A closely con- mining backfill at the Snatchill experimental site at Corby,
nected question relates to the depth to which in situ and some of the results are summarised in Table 7.
densification methods applied at the ground surface are With low-rise building developments on opencast mining
effective. backfills bearing capacity is unlikely to be a major problem,
and foundation design based solely on an allowable bearing
pressure will not address the principal hazard. Fig. 34 shows
Evidence-based ground treatment settlements monitored at a housing development on clay fill
In the preface to the First Géotechnique Symposium in that had been treated by dynamic compaction at the Snatc-
Print, Ground treatment by deep compaction, the editors, hill experimental site. The houses have experienced 50 mm
Burland, McKenna and Tomlinson (1975), referred to the settlement over a period of 25 years. Ground adjacent to the
Table 7. Settlement of clay fill at Snatchill experimental site, Corby
Treatment Settlement of Settlement of houses (mm)

ground surface
induced by During house Total during and after house
treatment: m construction construction to 1999
Mean Maximum Minimum
Preloading 0.41 1.4 11 25 5

Dynamic compactiony 0.24 7.0 52 74 23
Inundation{ 0.10 6.1 54 149 30
No treatment – 2.7 33 53 14
9 m high surcharge in position for one month.
† 15 t weight, base area of 4 m2 , dropped from 20 m, energy input 2800 kN/m2 .
‡ Via 1 m deep trenches at 10 m centres.

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Height of fill: m
Time since dynamic compaction: months 10
1 3 10 30 100 300
0
5
Settlement subsequent to dynamic
10 0
May June July August
0 10 m depth
compaction: mm
20
30
Settlement: mm
200
Mean settlement of experimental 4·3 m depth
40 houses (measured at dpc level)
Mean settlement of adjacent ground
50 (measured 1 m below ground level) 400 2·2 m depth
Surface
Fig. 34. Long-term settlement of clay backfill following dynamic 600

compaction (after Charles & Watts, 2001)
Fig. 35. Settlement of opencast backfill induced by 9 m high
surcharge at Snatchill experimental site, Corby (after Charles et
houses, which is not loaded, has settled a comparable al., 1978)
amount, indicating that the settlement of the houses is
unrelated to the weight of the buildings, and can be attrib-
uted to creep compression under the self-weight of the fill. filled macrovoids between lumps of clay, and not by the very
Many of the geotechnical hazards for buildings on non- slow process of squeezing water out of the low-permeability
engineered fills are associated with volumetric compression lumps of clay. There was little recovery on unloading.
of the ground: therefore densification of the fill prior to Preloading from the ground surface has a limited depth of
building is an appropriate form of ground treatment. effectiveness, and an indication of this depth for the tempor-
Although uncompacted fills have low shear strength and high ary surcharge of fill at Corby is given in Fig. 36, which
compressibility compared with the same fill in a heavily indicates that the 9 m high surcharge had little or no effect
compacted state, this will not be a problem in many at depths greater than 9 to 10 m below ground level. The
situations. An angle of shearing resistance of 408, typical of heterogeneity of the backfill is demonstrated by the surface
a loose granular fill, is quite adequate for most purposes. settlement measured at the four settlement gauges, ranging
Compression of the fill under self-weight occurs as the fill is from 0.3 to 0.5 m. The depth of effectiveness (ze ) can be
placed, and low-rise housing applies only small extra loads defined as the depth to which significant vertical compres-
to the fill, so the greater compressibility of loose fill is of sion has been produced, and laboratory tests and the field
little practical importance; the real need is for ground inundation trial indicated that a vertical compression of 2%
treatment to convert a metastable fill into a stable fill. would significantly reduce the collapse potential of the fill.
Using this criterion, Fig. 37 shows that a 3 m high surcharge
is completely inadequate, and 5 to 6 m is the minimum
Preloading surcharge required to produce a significant improvement in
One of the most fundamental and simplest methods of fill behaviour; a 6 m high surcharge was effective to 6 m
ground treatment is to consolidate the fill by temporary depth and a 9 m surcharge to 9 m depth.
preloading with a surcharge of fill prior to construction. Fills Figure 38 suggests that for the normal range of surcharges
are generally inelastic and strains are mostly non-recover- where the ratio of height to width of the surcharge (H/B) is
able: therefore, once the fill has been consolidated, it will between 0.1 and 0.4, the ratio of depth of effectiveness to
remain in that denser state, and its subsequent vulnerability height of surcharge (ze /H) is just over 1 (Charles et al.,
to volumetric compression and hence settlement will be 1986; Charles, 1996). This relationship is valid only where
greatly reduced. Consolidation makes the ground much
stiffer under subsequent applied loads: in effect a normally
consolidated fill has been converted into an overconsolidated Settlement: mm
fill, with all the improvement in soil properties that are 0 200 400 600
0
consequent on this change. The settlement of preloaded fill
due to the subsequent weight of a building will be very
small provided that the stresses applied to the fill by the
5
building foundations are, at every point within the fill,
smaller than the stresses previously applied by the surcharge.

The effect of preloading is illustrated by comparing the
behaviour of fill that had been temporarily preloaded by a 10
spoil heap during the opencast operation at Horsley at gauge
D1 (Fig. 10) with fill at gauge B2 that had not been
preloaded (Fig. 9). The settlement at gauge D1 was less than 15
one fifth of that at gauge B2. The large rise in groundwater
level produced very little settlement in the preloaded ground.
However, the spoil heap was 30 m high, which is far in 20
excess of what would be practicable or economic as a
ground treatment method in normal circumstances.
Fill
The surcharge trial on the clay backfill at the Snatchill Bedrock
25
site gives a more realistic example of the effectiveness of
preloading as a ground treatment method. Fig. 35 shows the Fig. 36. Settlement of opencast backfill induced at four locations
rapid response of the clay fill to loading. This is because the by 9 m high surcharge at Snatchill experimental site, Corby
settlement of the fill was caused by the compression of air- (after Charles et al., 1978)

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560 CHARLES
Settlement: mm Vertical compression: %
0 200 400 0 2 4 new fill with a new zero time, so the advantages conferred
0 by a reduction in Æ are realised only in the long term. This
3m 5·7 m 9m may explain why, at the Snatchill experimental site, houses
3m 5·7 m 9m built on fill treated by dynamic compaction settled more

5
than houses on untreated fill (Table 7). Fig. 39 shows that
the creep settlement following dynamic compaction of two
10
quite different fill types was very similar, approximating to
Æ ¼ 0.5%.
15 Trials of both dynamic compaction and preloading were
carried out at the Snatchill experimental site. Dynamic
20 compaction was achieved by dropping a 15 t weight, with a
base area of 4 m2 , from a height of 20 m, with an average
energy input of 2800 kN/m2 . Dynamic compaction of the
25
clay backfill produced the same surface settlement as a
Fig. 37. Settlement of opencast backfill induced by 3 m, 5.7 m surcharge 5.7 m high, but the distribution of settlement with
and 9 m high surcharges at Snatchill experimental site, Corby depth was significantly different. Fig. 40 shows that the
compression of the near-surface fill was greater with dy-
namic compaction, but there was a much more clearly
Hγs/Bγ defined depth below which the treatment had virtually no
0·03 0·05 0·1 0·2 0·3 0·4 0·5 effect on the fill.
10
Time since dynamic compaction: months

10 30 100
0
5
4 Mean settlement of houses

built on 24 m deep clay fill
3
Mean settlement of 5 m deep
zeγ/Hγs
old refuse fill subsequent to

Settlement: mm
2 construction of 3 m high
embankment
20
0·5
Fig. 38. Effectiveness of preloading fills (after Charles, 1996): 40

H, height of surcharge; B, width of surcharge; ze , depth of
Fig. 39. Long-term settlement following dynamic compaction
effectiveness; ª, unit weight of treated fill; ªs , unit weight of
(after Charles & Burland, 1982)
surcharge fill
Settlement: mm
the density of the surcharge is similar to the density of the 0 100 200 300
0
in situ fill.
The data presented in Table 7 illustrate the effectiveness
of surcharging the clay fill at Snatchill: the settlement of
houses built on untreated fill was about three times as great Dynamic
as the settlement of houses built on clay fill that had been compaction
subjected to a 9 m high temporary surcharge. However,
inadequate performance of poorly compacted fill is most

likely to be associated with the metastable condition of the
5
fill, and the extent to which preloading will remove or
reduce collapse potential needs to be established when 5·7 m surcharge
adopting a particular form of ground treatment.
Dynamic compaction
The repeated dropping of a heavy weight onto the ground
surface is one of the most basic methods of compacting 10
loose, partially saturated fill. The development of heavy civil
engineering plant has made dynamic compaction practical
on a large scale. The effectiveness of this treatment method
has been monitored by BRE at several filled sites (Charles
et al., 1981). Although dynamic compaction will reduce the Fig. 40. Comparison of settlement induced in clay fill by
creep compression rate parameter Æ, it effectively creates a dynamic compaction and 5.7 m high surcharge

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Grouting ground treatment can be an effective risk mitigation mea-
Since both preloading with a temporary surcharge of fill sure, there may be some residual risk, for example inunda-
and dynamic compaction will be effective only in the upper tion of untreated fill at depth in a deep fill due to a rising
zone of a deep fill, there remains a residual risk associated groundwater level, which can occur when pumping asso-
with collapse potential in the lower part of the fill, where a ciated with deep mining ceases.
rising groundwater level could trigger collapse compression.
The magnitude of the risk will depend on the hydrogeology
of the site as well as the magnitude of the collapse potential CONDITION ASSESSMENT OF EMBANKMENT DAMS
of the fill. With the closure of so many coal mines in Great With ageing infrastructure, condition assessment will in-
Britain this is a significant hazard in some areas, and studies creasingly require the attention and skills of geotechnical
of groundwater rebound have been carried out for the South engineers (Johnston et al., 1999; Perry et al., 2001). Such
Yorkshire coalfield (Burke & Younger, 2000; Dumpleton et assessments can raise many difficult questions. Is a record of
al., 2001). Smyth-Osbourne & Mizon (1984) have described previous good behaviour and the absence of any obvious
how a single-storey factory built on opencast backfill in signs of distress a sufficient guarantee of future satisfactory
Durham suffered damaging settlement when pumping asso- performance? Can the safety of an old embankment dam
ciated with deep mining in the area ceased and groundwater built without any knowledge of modern soil mechanics, and
levels rose, inundating the bottom of the backfill. for which few construction records have survived, be reliably
In the light of this hazard, alternative forms of ground assessed without an intrusive site investigation? The careful
treatment that can be effective at much greater depths may design of a new dam may eliminate many hazards—for
have to be considered. Vibrated stone columns could allow example, appropriate filter design may prevent or halt inter-
surface water to be introduced into the fill at depth, and may nal erosion—but, with an old water-retaining structure, it
therefore be unsuitable. BRE is currently investigating the may be difficult to assess whether the structure is vulnerable
use of grout injection to stabilise fill at specified depths by to internal erosion.
filling the voids that would collapse on inundation with
inexpensive particulate grout. Laboratory studies have sug-
gested that a simple PFA/water grout injected into loose
colliery waste samples will induce collapse compression, Reservoir safety in Great Britain
thereby eliminating or significantly reducing subsequent col- Most British embankment dams were built before the
lapse potential. Full-scale field trials in a deep opencast development of modern soil mechanics, and many of them
mudstone/shale backfill have confirmed that grouting induces date back to the nineteenth century. The vast majority of
collapse, but some residual potential may remain. The addi- these old embankment dams were built to a traditional
tion of cement to the grout could significantly reduce the design with a central narrow puddle clay core (Skempton,
creep settlement induced by the treatment over the lifetime 1989). A typical cross-section is shown in Fig. 41. Most
of a building development. attention was given to the puddle clay, which was prepared
by adding water to form a very soft clay fill with an
undrained shear strength of only about 10 kPa. At this low
Conclusions strength, clay layers 0.15 to 0.2 m thick could be success-
While densifying a fill should lead to a general improve- fully compacted by heeling in. Much less attention and
ment in load-carrying characteristics such as increased stiff- much less compaction were given to the general embank-
ness, strength and bearing capacity, the critical hazard is ment fill in the supporting shoulders.
likely to be that loose fill is in a metastable condition and The 29 m high Dale Dyke puddle clay core embankment
vulnerable to large ground movements associated with phe- dam failed on 11 March 1864 during first filling of the
nomena such as collapse compression on inundation. The reservoir. The reservoir was almost at top water level when
answer to the question ‘Can a non-engineered opencast the embankment breached, and the catastrophic release of
mining backfill placed without controlled systematic com- the impounded water caused the ‘Great Sheffield Flood’ in
paction be converted into an engineered fill with suitable which 244 lives were lost and much property was destroyed.
properties for building development by in situ ground treat- Despite a thorough investigation by Robert Rawlinson, the
ment?’ therefore depends primarily on the extent to which government’s chief engineering inspector (Rawlinson &
ground treatment can convert a metastable fill into a stable Beardmore, 1864), the cause of the failure has continued to
fill and eliminate or at least greatly reduce the vulnerability be disputed (Binnie, 1978).
to collapse compression. The Dale Dyke disaster led to some loss of confidence in
Ground treatment of non-engineered fills should be im- this form of dam construction. The thoughts of Major Hector
plemented in a rational context in which the required ground Tulloch, who later succeeded Rawlinson as the chief engi-
behaviour for a particular use of the ground is defined, likely neering inspector of the Local Government Board, turned to
deficiencies in fill behaviour are identified, and appropriate masonry dams, and he wrote to Professor Rankine: ‘I con-
treatment is designed and implemented to remedy those sider the fact of the puddle wall in the middle of the dam
deficiencies. Correct diagnosis of the problem is the essential being virtually all the resistance that the dam can bring to
first step. Well-documented case histories of ground treat- bear against the water, renders all our dams far too weak.’
ment provide essential data for the adoption of evidence-
based ground treatment. Poorly documented case histories, Selected fine material
Puddle clay core
where little is known except that no problems have yet been Top water level
2·5
reported, may give a misleading impression of the effective- 3 1 Embankment fill
1 (as excavated)
ness of ground treatment.
Those forms of ground treatment that are applied at the
ground surface will be effective to only a limited depth: Natural ground
Puddle-clay-filled cut-off
neither preloading nor dynamic compaction as normally trench
implemented is likely to have much effect at depths greater
than 10 m below ground level, and in many cases they may Fig. 41. Typical cross-section of an old puddle clay core
have a much more restricted depth of effectiveness. While embankment dam (after Charles & Watts, 1987)

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562 CHARLES
In his reply Rankine stressed the importance of the founda- Embankment movements may be caused by deleterious
tion, which ‘should be sound rock, if practicable, and should processes such as internal erosion or slope instability, but in
a rock foundation be unobtainable, firm impervious earth’. many cases they are due to generally benign or innocuous
He added that ‘It may be doubted whether any earthen processes such as the secondary compression of the core,
foundation is thoroughly to be relied on where the depth of creep of the shoulder fill, volume change in puddle clay due
water exceeds 100 or 120 feet.’ Rankine also warned Tulloch to seasonal water content variations, and stress changes
that ‘It is not advisable to build a masonry dam on an associated with fluctuations in reservoir level during normal
earthen foundation’ (Tulloch, 1872). operation.
The response of the legislature to the 1864 disaster was Settlement will occur for many years after the completion
not rapid, and it took further loss of life occasioned by two of construction owing to secondary consolidation of the core
dam failures in 1925 to renew concerns about reservoir and creep of the more granular shoulder fill, which can be
safety (Charles, 2002). The 1930 Reservoirs (Safety Provi- described by a settlement index, given by
sions) Act imposed a safety regime requiring an inspection
of large raised reservoirs by a qualified civil engineer, s
SI ¼ (5)
known as the inspecting engineer, at intervals not exceeding H logð t2 =t1 Þ
10 years. The 1975 Reservoirs Act introduced the additional
where s is the crest settlement measured between times t1
role of the supervising engineer, who, unlike the inspecting
and t2 since the completion of the embankment at a section
engineer, has a continuous responsibility for the reservoir.
of the dam of height H.
The term ‘inspection’ was retained in the 1975 legislation,
There is a close correspondence between SI and Æ, the
but ‘condition assessment’ or ‘safety evaluation’ would have
creep compression rate parameter. At two dams where the
given a better indication of what is required.
reservoirs were no longer used for water supply, and which
Surveillance and monitoring form important elements in
were kept full over several years, it was found that SI ¼
the safety management of old embankment dams. Careful
0.8% at Challacombe and SI ¼ 0.9% at Cwmwernderi (Table
visual observations by personnel familiar with an embank-
9). It was proposed that where SI . 2% the likelihood of
ment dam are a critical element now that most British dams
some mechanism in addition to creep causing the settlement
no longer have the benefit of a resident reservoir keeper.
should be seriously considered (Charles, 1986).
Leakage measurement and settlement of the crest of the
Movements much greater than creep settlement can be
embankment are the most common forms of routine mon-
caused by changes in reservoir level, and the pattern and
itoring. A sudden large increase in leakage is likely to give
magnitude of deformations on reservoir drawdown depend
a clear indication of the hazardous development of internal
on the position of the watertight element. Lowering the
erosion, but the significance of an increase in the rate of
reservoir level causes an increase in vertical effective stress
settlement of the crest of the embankment is less easy to
in the more permeable upstream fill of an old puddle clay
assess.
core dam, with resulting settlement. The effect of reservoir
Surface settlement and horizontal displacement can be
level changes on the clay core is complex. Lowering the
measured using precise surveying techniques, but in most
reservoir level reduces the lateral pressure on the upstream
cases optical levelling is the simplest and most reliable way
side of the core and leads to immediate upstream horizontal
of monitoring crest settlement. Table 8 provides information
movement and settlement of the core as the core deforms
on several old embankment dams where BRE has carried
under undrained conditions. Removal of the water from the
out long-term measurements of crest settlement. The meas-
upstream side of the core also changes the drainage condi-
urement of internal displacements in existing dams requires
tions and allows consolidation and time-dependent settlement
the installation of relatively complex and expensive instru-
of the clay core. On refilling the reservoir, these effects are
mentation in vertical boreholes: magnet extensometers have
reversed. The crest settlement of an old puddle clay core
been used for measuring vertical displacements, and inclin-
dam, Ramsden, caused by completely emptying the reservoir
ometers for measuring horizontal displacements. The mon-
is illustrated in Fig. 42. It is seen that fully emptying the
itoring of piezometric pressures in the fill forms an
reservoir causes a disproportionately large settlement.
important part of a detailed investigation, and requires
Simple models of the upstream fill can be used to predict
intrusive borings.
settlement patterns during reservoir drawdown, as shown in
Fig. 43, which illustrates the major influence of the position
of the watertight element. The increase in vertical effective
Crest settlement stress in the upstream fill of a dam with a central puddle
A critical question relates to whether or not movements, clay core, which occurs on emptying the reservoir, causes a
measured in some cases more than 100 years after the maximum settlement at the crest of the dam; in contrast,
construction of a dam, are due to an incipient malfunction emptying the reservoir of a dam with an impermeable
that could lead to failure if remedial action is not taken. membrane on the upstream slope causes a decrease in water
Table 8. Crest settlement monitored at old embankment dams
Dam Date H: m Watertight Foundation cut-off

built element
Holmestyes 1840 25 ucb Shallow puddle clay

Ogden 1858 25 cpcc Shallow puddle clay
Yateholme 1872 17 cpcc Concrete
Ramsden 1892 25 cpcc Concrete
Cwmwernderi 1901 22 cpcc Shallow puddle clay
Walshaw Dean Lower 1907 22 cpcc Deep puddle clay
Challacombe 1945 15 cpcc Concrete
H, height of embankment; ucb, upstream clay blanket; cpcc, central puddle clay core.

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Table 9. Settlement index for some embankment dams
Dam Date H: m Type and position Measurement SI : %

built of watertight period
element
Megget 1981 56 cac 1981–1996 0.02

Scammonden 1969 73 urcc 1969–1989 0.17
Brianne 1971 90 crcc 1971–1992 0.36
Challacombe 1945 15 cpcc 1981–1989 0.8
Cwmwernderi 1901 22 cpcc 1981–1989 0.9
Holmestyes 1840 25 ucb 1992–2001 2.7
cac, central asphaltic core; cpcc, central puddle clay core; crcc, central rolled clay core;
ucb, upstream clay blanket; urcc, upstream rolled clay core; H, height of embankment; SI ,
settlement index.
1988 1989 1990 pressure with consequent heave of the upstream slope, with
0 a maximum value halfway down the slope and virtually no
movement at the crest. This pattern of behaviour assumes
Reservoir level:
m below crest
5
that the upstream watertight element is fully effective, and
10
that reservoir level changes have no effect on pore water
pressures in the upstream fill. Fig. 44 presents the same
15 information in terms of the vertical movements induced on
Empty
the upstream slope for partial as well as full reservoir
20 drawdown, assuming a constrained modulus of 100 MPa for
the upstream fill. It should not be forgotten that in certain
circumstances rapid drawdown could cause upstream slope
0 instability.
Monitoring of crest settlement has an important role in
assessing the long-term performance and safety of embank-
20 18·5 m ment dams, and in collaboration with Yorkshire Water BRE
Settlement: mm
carried out a programme of field studies to investigate the

12·6 m
effects of operational cycles of reservoir drawdown and
40 refilling on embankment deformations (Tedd et al., 1990,
1994, 1997a, 1997b). Complementary analytical work was
6·5 m carried out at Imperial College (Kovacevic et al., 1997).
60 The crest settlements monitored during reservoir draw-
Crest down at a dam with a central puddle clay core, Walshaw
Dean Lower, and a dam with an upstream clay blanket,
80 Holmestyes, are plotted in Fig. 45, and a large difference in
Fig. 42. Influence of reservoir drawdown on settlement of crest behaviour is apparent (Tedd et al., 2002); settlement at
of Ramsden dam and at different depths within the puddle clay Walshaw Dean Lower is much greater and influenced by
core (after Tedd et al., 1997b) reservoir drawdown to a much larger extent than as pre-
dicted by the simple models.
Figure 46 shows settlement as a function of depth of
drawdown for the puddle clay core embankment dams in the
Settlement units (γ ⫺ γ⬘)H 2 0 0·28 0 0·5
Displacement 30 mm
D TWL
scale (0%)
0 0·13
(50%) 25 m
δ50%
δ100%
(100%)
(a)
(a)
Heave units γwH 2 0

TWL
D 0·19 0 (0%)
0·25 0
(50%)
25 m
0·19 0 δ100%
δ50%
(100%)
(b) (b)
Fig. 43. Vertical movements in upstream shoulder during Fig. 44. Vertical movements of upstream slope during reservoir
reservoir drawdown for dams with watertight element (after drawdown for dams with watertight element (after Tedd et al.,
Charles, 1993): (a) in centre of embankment; (b) on upstream 1997b): (a) in centre of embankment; (b) on upstream slope (:
slope calculated displacement of upstream slope)

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564 CHARLES
Jan Jan Jan Jan Nov Nov Nov
1990 1994 1998 2002 1991 1995 1999
0
Drawdown depth: m
10
20
0
Crest settlement: mm
25
50
75
(a) (b)
Fig. 45. Monitored crest settlement during reservoir drawdown of dams with watertight element (after Tedd et al.,
2002): (a) Walshaw Dean Lower, central puddle clay core; (b) Holmestyles, upstream clay blanket
0·6 drawdown depends on the unloading–reloading moduli of

the fill materials, and the results of an oedometer test on
typical upstream fill with major and minor unloading–
0·5 reloading cycles are shown in Fig. 47. One contributory
cause of the disproportionately large increase in settlement
0·4 Vertical stress: kPa

sm /H 0 50 100 150 200
3·2
Strain: %
0·3
Initial
0·2 loading
3·4
sp /H
0·1
sr /H
0·0 3·6 B
Vertical strain: %
0 5 10 15 20 25
Initial
Drawdown depth: m
unloading
Fig. 46. Mean vertical strain as a function of depth of draw- D

down for old puddle clay core embankment dams in BRE– Permanent A
strain due to
Yorkshire Water study (after Tedd et al., 1997b): sm , maximum 3·8 4 major First reloading–
settlement; sp , permanent settlement; sr , recovered settlement; reloading– unloading cycle
H, embankment height unloading
cycles C
Permanent
BRE–Yorkshire Water monitoring programme (Tedd et al., 4·0 strain due to
1997b). Further data published by Tedd et al. (2002) con- 4 minor
reloading–
firmed the general pattern of drawdown behaviour. Settle- unloading
ments are large compared with those associated with creep, cycles
and an analysis of the settlement of puddle core dams that
ignores the effect of reservoir drawdown could lead to the
4·2
diagnosis of a problem where none exists. However, it could
be questioned whether the disproportionately large increase Fig. 47. Effect of minor and major unloading–reloading cycles
in settlement with a major drawdown should be of concern. in oedometer test on mudstone fill from Ogden dam (after Tedd
The magnitude of the deformations produced by reservoir et al., 1997b)

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with a major drawdown is illustrated by the oedometer test nent settlement on refilling depend on the depth of the
results. At a typical location within the upstream shoulder drawdown. Such settlements are unlikely to indicate any
close to the embankment centreline, A represents the vertical threat to the stability of the dam, except that after many
stress at the end of construction of the embankment. The years’ reservoir operation the lowered freeboard may need to
decrease in effective stress due to the submergence of the be restored. The changes in loading caused by reservoir
upstream shoulder on first filling the reservoir is represented drawdown and refilling have little effect on the settlement of
by the line AB. BC represents the complete emptying of the the crest of dams with upstream membranes.
reservoir and the consequent recovery of the vertical stress Where the failure of a major embankment dam would
at the end of construction. CD represents the refilling of the present a substantial risk to public safety, carefully executed
reservoir. A study of the first major drawdown, BC, shows long-term monitoring of leakage and settlement should form
that the modulus in the later stages of drawdown is very a key element of the safety regime. When there is little or
much smaller than the modulus in the initial stage of draw- no knowledge of the structure of the dam, or of the geo-
down, and hence much larger vertical movements can be technical properties of the embankment materials, a carefully
expected with a major drawdown, which is quite the oppo- planned and adequately supervised intrusive ground investi-
site of what would be expected with a constant modulus, as gation forms an important part of a credible safety evalua-
shown in Fig. 44. tion.
A record of previous apparently good behaviour is not a
sufficient guarantee of future satisfactory performance. Inter-
Seepage, leakage and internal erosion nal erosion of the embankment fill or the foundation soils
It would be misleading to conclude a review of the remains the greatest threat to the safety of embankment
application of case histories in the condition assessment of dams, and case histories of failures and serious incidents
embankment dams without some reference, however brief, to provide one of the best guides to assessing the risk of this
their use in evaluating the threat posed by internal erosion, hazard for an existing dam.
which is at its greatest with the reservoir at top water level
when embankment failure is most likely to lead to a
catastrophic release of the impounded water. CONCLUDING REMARKS
A sudden rise in the seepage/leakage flow rate when the For the foreseeable future, fill behaviour will be of in-
reservoir reaches a particular level requires investigation, creasing importance to the geotechnical engineer because of
and turbid water emerging from a dam is likely to signify the following developments:
internal erosion, which may lead to a rapid deterioration of
(a) Urbanisation. An increasing proportion of the rapidly
the dam or its foundation. Fill materials exhibit a very wide
increasing world population will live in large cities
range of erosion resistance (Atkinson et al., 1990; Charles,
where much of the ground will be fill.
1997) and, consequently, leakage and associated internal
(b) Land reclamation. Major schemes to reclaim land from
erosion have developed very differently at different dams.
the sea, and from industrial and mining dereliction, will
Although dam failures are very rare in Great Britain, serious
involve large quantities of engineered fills.
incidents are by no means infrequent, and case histories of
(c) Mineral wastes. Billions of tonnes of solid waste will
failures and serious incidents provide valuable information
be generated by industrial and mining activities every
(Charles, 1989).
year and deposited either as spoil heaps on the surface
A study of case histories of European embankment dams
of the ground or as waste dumps within excavations.
by a European Working Group of the International Commis-
sion on Large Dams found that in almost half the cases Some important aspects of fill behaviour have been high-
where failure occurred, or would have occurred if the lighted by the case histories of field behaviour.
reservoir level had not been rapidly drawn down, the pro-
blem was associated with a structure passing through the
embankment from upstream to downstream (Charles, 1998a, Poorly compacted non-engineered fills contrasted with
2001). Rapid lowering of the reservoir level has been a heavily compacted engineered fills
major factor in preventing the failure of a number of dams The principal difference between heavily compacted fill
in Europe and North America (Charles, 1998b). While this placed under controlled conditions and the same fill placed
aspect of reservoir safety is not a geotechnical issue, a better in a looser condition without much control is that in the
understanding of the erodibility of fill materials would be of former state the fill will be relatively uniform and have
great assistance in the safety evaluation of old embankment behaviour that is readily predicted on the basis of average
dams. properties, whereas in the latter state there may be great
heterogeneity, and behaviour will be largely controlled by
zones where the fill is in a metastable condition. In this
Conclusions latter state behaviour will be difficult to predict.
The correct diagnosis of problems is critical in the condi- De Mello (1977) pointed out that geotechnical problems
tion assessment of old embankment dams. Since anomalous can be divided into two categories, those amenable to analy-
movements may indicate the development of a hazardous sis on the basis of average properties and those controlled
situation, it is important to know what constitutes normal by extreme-value conditions, and he claimed that computa-
behaviour so that abnormal behaviour is identified at an tions connected with the second group of problems were a
early stage and normal behaviour does not cause unneces- delusion! Building on an opencast mining backfill that has
sary alarm. A simple model of fill deformation has been been placed without systematic compaction in layers or,
validated by careful field monitoring. indeed, any form of control presents problems that come in
On reservoir drawdown, there is a major difference be- the latter category, and the geotechnical engineer must
tween the behaviour of a dam with a central watertight change the governing conditions, typically either by improv-
element and a dam with an upstream watertight element. ing the metastable fill using an appropriate form of ground
Significant crest and upstream slope settlement of dams treatment so that it becomes a stable fill with predictable
with central clay cores can be expected when the reservoir geotechnical behaviour, or by circumventing unpredictable
is lowered. The magnitude of the movement and the perma- fill behaviour by the use of piles.

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566 CHARLES
Vaughan (1994b) asserted that understanding real soil investigation to determine the form of dam construction is
behaviour is more important than accurate calculation, and likely to be required to provide a credible basis for pronoun-
nowhere is this more true than with heterogeneous uncom- cing that the dam does not form a significant threat to public
pacted fills, where collapse compression on inundation is safety.
one of the most important features of field performance. The
successful application of geotechnical engineering to predic-
tion requires realistic assumptions to be made, which have Relevance of research
been tested against monitored field behaviour. In the first Rankine Lecture in 1961 Arthur Casagrande
quoted from Rankine’s inaugural address when he became
professor at the University of Glasgow in 1856. Rankine
Problems with fill behaviour mostly associated with water distinguished between theoretical science and engineering in
As Terzaghi succinctly said in his 1939 James Forrest the following manner: ‘In theoretical science, the question
lecture: is—what are we to think? . . . But in practical science the
question is—What are we to do?’ Rankine spelt out the
. . .. in engineering practice difficulties with soils are
implications of this distinction: whereas the scientist will
almost exclusively due not to the soils themselves but to
‘labour for the advancement of experimental inquiry and of
the water contained in their voids. On a planet without any
mathematics, and await patiently the time when these shall
water there would be no need for soil mechanics.
be adequate to solve the question’, in contrast, the engineer
When a geotechnical engineer is exclusively focusing on has to exercise ‘prompt and sound judgement’ and ‘if
stress and strain—that is, on deformations resulting from existing data are insufficient to give an exact solution of the
applied loads—it is well to remember that on a planet question, that approximate solution must be acted upon
without any water there would be no need, or at the very which the best data attainable show to be the most prob-
least much less need, for soil mechanics! The principle of able’. Terzaghi (1939) pointed out that ‘The value of an
effective stress shows that pore water pressure must be engineering science is determined by what it can accomplish
considered in dealing with the relationship between stress as a tool in the hands of the practising engineer’, and it is
and strain in fills, but water has a greater significance than pertinent to ask how far current geotechnical research meets
this. the needs of the practising engineer.
For buildings on non-engineered fill the risk of collapse In his key work on the history and development of the
compression on inundation is normally the main concern, scientific method, The structure of scientific revolutions,
since buildings may be seriously damaged. The corollary of Thomas Kuhn (1962) outlined the natural development of a
this is that the presence or absence of groundwater within a scientific subject once a theoretical framework has been
non-engineered fill and the past and likely future changes in firmly established and standard textbooks have become avail-
groundwater level are of primary importance in assessing able. The creative scientist now begins his research where
the suitability of such a fill for building development. This the textbook leaves off and will ‘concentrate exclusively
must be kept in mind when specifying the site investigation, upon the subtlest and most esoteric aspects of the natural
adopting a particular form of ground treatment, and design- phenomena that concern his group’. This in turn affects the
ing foundations. nature and content of his research communiqués, which are
For fill dams the greatest hazard is usually internal no longer embodied in books addressed to anyone who
erosion. While much work has been carried out on the might be interested in the subject matter of the field:
design of filters for new dams, the hazard posed by internal
Instead they will usually appear as brief articles addressed
erosion in old dams is a comparatively neglected field. The
only to professional colleagues, the men whose knowledge
erosion of fill material by the flow of water requires much
of a shared paradigm can be assumed and who prove to be
more study.
the only ones able to read the papers addressed to them.
This type of development, which is very difficult to avoid, is
Safety evaluation of embankment dams of particular concern in engineering science. Within geotech-
In the developed world where there is an ageing infra- nics there has been a progression from a situation where
structure the assessment of existing structures, as opposed to most papers were written for the benefit of, and to be
the design of new structures, will be of increasing impor- understood by practising engineers to a situation where
tance to practising engineers. In this respect reservoir safety, many papers are written by academic researchers for an
which in many countries is the subject of legislation audience of other academic researchers and can only be
(Charles & Wright, 1996), has shown the way ahead. understood by a small group of research scientists. Progres-
Diagnosis of malfunctioning is at the heart of condition sion is scarcely an appropriate word to describe this change.
assessment and safety evaluation of existing structures: this
is quite different from design, and can be more difficult. An
analogy with medicine is helpful: the general practitioner Importance of case histories
may know a great deal about anatomy and physiology, but Sound engineering judgement requires experience, and the
how good is his diagnosis when confronted by a patient who most effective way of supplementing one’s necessarily lim-
gives a garbled and potentially misleading account of his ited personal experience is by studying case histories: those
symptoms? The practitioner needs more than just theory; case records that include field measurements are of particu-
experience is required, and personal experience can be lar value to the practising engineer. More practically oriented
greatly extended by studying case histories. geotechnical research is needed that includes long-term
Is it reasonable to pronounce a Victorian embankment monitoring. A mathematical model of ground behaviour that
dam to be safe, when little, if anything, is known about its is not based on sound experimental data validated by field
design and construction, simply on the basis that it has observations will be of doubtful practical utility.
survived for over 100 years and currently exhibits no The disuse of case histories—that is, the failure to study
particular identifiable causes for concern? Where failure of case histories—can be calamitous. We may unnecessarily
the dam and the consequent release of the reservoir water repeat old mistakes, and in an increasingly litigious society
pose a substantial risk to life and property some intrusive there will be those who, in the event of some geotechnical

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Table 10. Owners and consulting engineers of monitored dams
Dam Owner Consulting engineers
Brianne Welsh Water Binnie & Partners

Marchlyn Central Electricity Generating Binnie & Partners
Board
Megget Lothian Regional Council Robert H. Cuthbertson &
Partners
Roadford South West Water Babtie Group
Scammonden Yorkshire Water Rofe Kennard & Lapworth
Winscar Yorkshire Water Mander, Raikes & Marshall
Challacombe South West Water
Cwmwernderi Welsh Water
Holmestyes Yorkshire Water
Ogden Yorkshire Water
Ramsden Yorkshire Water
Walshaw Dean Lower Yorkshire Water
Yateholme Yorkshire Water
failure, will be only too ready to point out the failure of the knowledged. A substantial part of the research work on
designer to heed lessons from the past. opencast coal mining backfills was carried out in collabora-
The misuse of case histories—that is, the failure to draw tion with the NCB Opencast Executive, and the experimental
correct conclusions from case histories—is a more difficult work at Corby with the Corby Development Corporation.
matter to rectify. The available case histories of a particular
type of geotechnical structure may not be representative. No
case history will be fully comprehensive: it will not provide
NOTATION
us with all the facts, and each case history will be influ- B width of surcharge
enced by the writer’s technical understanding, or lack of it. cu undrained shear strength
In some cases evidence may have been carefully selected to D constrained modulus
make a point that would not be supported by a more Dª H secant-constrained modulus for v ¼ ªH
balanced presentation of the evidence. H height of embankment or surcharge
Discernment is required in the study of case histories, but h height of fill
despite their shortcomings they provide a much needed hw reservoir head
counterweight to excessive theorisation. This study of the n porosity
engineering behaviour of fill materials has attempted to nmax maximum deflection of upstream membrane during reservoir
filling
demonstrate the value of case histories, particularly those
ru pore pressure ratio
that include long-term field measurements. SI settlement index
s settlement
smax maximum settlement during embankment construction
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS sm maximum settlement on reservoir drawdown
In theoretical studies it is quite possible for an individual sp permanent settlement on reservoir drawdown
to make a major contribution with relatively little help from sr recovered settlement on reservoir drawdown
others, whereas fieldwork of necessity is a team effort, and t time since fill placement or loading
in the work on the engineering behaviour of fill materials at u pore pressure ratio
Va percentage air voids
BRE many people have been involved. Initially I had the
w water content
privilege of working for Dr Arthur Penman; at a later stage I wL liquid limit
collaborated with Dr Paul Tedd and latterly with Hilary wP plastic limit
Skinner. Many of the early field surveying measurements ze depth of effectiveness of ground treatment
were made by Don Burford. Not only did Ken Watts carry Æ creep compression rate parameter
out much of the later fieldwork, but he also provided help in ª bulk unit weight
the preparation of this lecture. Much of the work had its ª9 effective unit weight of submerged fill
origin in the time when Professor John Burland was Head of ªd dry unit weight
the Geotechnics Division. To all these colleagues, and to ªs unit weight of surcharge fill
others who have rendered assistance, I acknowledge my debt ªw unit weight of water
v vertical strain
and express my gratitude. Thanks are also due to Dr Peter r bulk density
Bonfield, the Chief Executive of BRE, and to other members rd dry density
of the senior management for the use of BRE facilities in rs particle density
preparing this lecture. v vertical stress
Field measurements require the collaboration of the own-
ers of the structures and their consulting engineers, and
these are listed in Table 10 for the research work on the
various dams. Most of these owners and consulting engi- REFERENCES
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Charles, J. A. (1990). Laboratory compression tests and the defor- Collins, P. G. M. & Humphreys, J. D. (1974). Winscar Reservoir.
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Charles, J. A. (1996). The depth of influence of loaded areas. De Mello, V. F. B (1977). 17th Rankine Lecture: Reflections on
Géotechnique 46, No. 1, 51–61. design decisions of practical significance to embankment dams.
Charles, J. A. (1997). General Report on Question 73: Special Géotechnique 27, No. 3, 279–355.
problems associated with earthfill dams. Trans. 19th Int. Cong. Dumpleton, S., Robins, N. S., Walker, J. A. & Merrin, P. D. (2001).
on Large Dams, Florence 2, 1083–1198. Mine water rebound in south Nottinghamshire: risk evaluation
Charles, J. A. (1998a). Internal erosion in European embankment using 3-D visualization and predictive modelling. Q. J. Engng
dams: progress report of working group on internal erosion in Geol. Hydrogeol. 34, No. 3, 307–319.
embankment dams. Proceedings of the international symposium Duncanson, J. K. & Johnston, T. A. (1988). The impervious
on dam safety, Barcelona, Vol. 2, pp. 1567–1576. membranes at Colliford and Roadford reservoirs in south west
Charles, J. A. (1998b). Geoffrey Binnie Lecture: Lives of embank- England. Trans. 16th Int. Cong. on Large Dams, San Francisco
ment dams: construction to old age. Dams & Reservoirs 8, No. 2, 679–691.
3, 11–23. Evans, J. D. & Wilson, A. C. (1992). The instrumentation, monitor-
Charles, J. A. (2001). Internal erosion in European embankment ing and performance of Roadford Dam during construction and
dams. Proceedings of the ICOLD European Symposium, Geiran- first filling. Proc. 7th British Dam Society Conf., Stirling, 157–
ger, Supplementary volume, pp. 19–27 (reprinted in Proc. 12th 165.
British Dam Society Conf., Dublin, September 2002, 378–393). Evans, J. D. & Wilson, A. C. (1994). The asphalt membranes at
Charles, J. A. (2002). A historical perspective on reservoir safety Colliford and Roadford reservoirs. Proc. 8th British Dam So-
legislation in the United Kingdom. In Reservoirs in a changing ciety Conf., Exeter, 1–11.
world: Proc. 12th British Dam Society Conf., Dublin, 494–509. Gallacher, D. (1988). Asphaltic concrete core at the Megget dam.
Charles, J. A. (2005). Geotechnics for building professionals. Wat- Trans. 16th Int. Cong. on Large Dams, San Francisco, 2, 707–
ford: Building Research Establishment. 731.
Charles, J. A. & Burford, D. (1987). Settlement and groundwater in Gallacher, D., Doake, R. M. & Hay-Smith, D. (1998). Remedial
opencast mining backfills. Proc. 9th Eur. Conf. Soil Mech. works to upstream face protection, Megget reservoir. Proc. 10th
Found. Engng, Dublin 1, 289–292. Conf. of British Dam Society, Bangor, 342–358.
Charles, J. A. & Burland, J. B. (1982). Geotechnical considerations Hopkins, J. K., Tedd, P. & Bray, C. (2002). Colliford and Roadford
in the design of foundations for buildings on deep deposits of dams: performance of the asphaltic concrete membranes and the
waste materials. Struct. Engr 60A, No. 1, 8–14. embankments. Proc. 12th British Dam Society Conf., Dublin,
Charles, J. A. & Penman, A. D. M. (1988). The behaviour of 444–455.

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Hughes, R. A. N. (1998). Raising Llysyfran and Brianne dams. Skinner, H. D., Watts, K. S. & Charles, J. A. (1997). Building on
Proc. 10th Conf. of British Dam Society, Bangor, 303–314. colliery spoil: some geotechnical considerations. Ground Engng
Johnston, T. A., Millmore, J. P., Charles, J. A. & Tedd, P. (1999). 30, No. 5, 35–40.
An engineering guide to the safety of embankment dams in the Smyth-Osbourne, K. R. & Mizon, D. H. (1984). Settlement of a
United Kingdom, 2nd edn, BRE Report BR 363. Garston: factory on opencast backfill. Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Ground
Building Research Establishment. Movements and Structures, Cardiff, 463–479.
Kilkenny, W. M. (1968). A study of the settlement of restored Sowers, G. F., Williams, R. C. & Wallace, T. S. (1965). Compressi-
opencast coal sites and their suitability for building develop- bility of broken rock and the settlement of rockfills. Proc. 6th
ment, Bulletin No. 38. Department of Civil Engineering, Uni- Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Engng, Montreal 2, 561–565.
versity of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Tedd, P., Charles, J. A. & Claydon, J. R. (1990). Deformation of
Kovacevic, N., Potts, D. M., Vaughan, P. R., Charles, J. A. & Tedd, Ramsden Dam during reservoir drawdown and refilling. Proc.
P. (1997). Assessing the safety of old embankment dams by 6th Conf. of British Dam Society, Nottingham, 171–176.
observing and analysing movement during reservoir operation. Tedd, P., Charles, J. A., Holton, I. R. & Robertshaw, A. C. (1994).
Trans. 19th Int. Cong. on Large Dams, Florence 2, 551–566. Deformation of embankment dams due to changes in reservoir
Kuhn, T. S. (1996). The structure of scientific revolutions, 3rd edn. level. Proc. 13th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Engng, New Delhi
Chicago: University of Chicago Press (first published 1962). 3, 951–954.
Lange, S. (1986). Building on uncompacted dumps in the Rhenish Tedd, P., Charles, J. A., Evans, J. D. & Macdonald, A. (1995). The
brown coal area of the Federal Republic of Germany. Proceed- use of electro-level systems to monitor dam deformations.
ings of the conference on building on marginal and derelict Proceedings of the European symposium on research and
land, Glasgow, pp. 137–153. development in the field of dams, Crans-Montana, pp. 883–890.
Marsland, A. & Quarterman, R. (1974). Further development of Tedd, P., Charles, J. A. & Holton, I. R. (1997a). Settlement of old
multi-point magnetic extensometers for use in highly compres- embankment dams: a guide to measurement and interpretation.
sible ground. Géotechnique 24, No. 3, 429–433. Dams & Reservoirs, J. Br. Dam Soc. 7, No. 1, 18–23.
Meyerhof, G. G. (1951). Building on fill with special reference to Tedd, P., Charles, J. A., Holton, I. R. & Robertshaw, A. C. (1997b).
the settlement of a large factory. Struct. Engr 29, No. 2, 46–57; The effect of reservoir drawdown and long-term consolidation
Discussion, 29, No. 11, 297–305. on the deformation of old embankment dams. Géotechnique 47,
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1973a). Measuring movements No. 1, 33–48.
of embankment dams. Proceedings of the BGS symposium on Tedd, P., Charles, J. A. & Robertshaw, A. C. (2002). Settlement of
field instrumentation in geotechnical engineering, London, pp. old embankment dams and reservoir drawdown. Proc. 12th
341–358. Conf. of British Dam Society, Dublin, 367–377.
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1973b). Constructional Terzaghi, K. (1936). Relation between soil mechanics and founda-
deformations in rockfill dam. J. Soil Mech. Found. Div. ASCE tion engineering. Proc. 1st Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Engng,
99, No. SM2, 139–163. Harvard 3, 13–18.
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1973c). Effect of the position Terzaghi, K. (1939). Soil mechanics: a new chapter in engineering
of the core on the behaviour of two rockfill dams. Trans. 11th science. 45th James Forrest Lecture. J. Instn Civil Engrs 12,
Int. Cong. on Large Dams, Madrid 3, 315–339. 106–141.
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1982). An improved horizontal Trenter, N. A. & Charles, J. A. (1998). A model specification for
plate gauge. Géotechnique, 32, No. 3, 278–282. engineered fills for building purposes. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1985a). Behaviour of rockfill Geotech. Engng 119, 219–230.
dam with asphaltic membrane. Proc. 11th Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Tulloch, H. (1872). The water-supply of Bombay: A report sub-
Found. Engng, San Francisco 4, 2011–2014. mitted to the Bench of Justices of Bombay by their Executive
Penman, A. D. M. & Charles, J. A. (1985b). A comparison between Engineer. London: W. J. Johnson.
observed and predicted deformations of an embankment dam Vaughan, P. R. (1994a). Criteria for the use of weak and weathered
with a central asphaltic core. Trans. 15th Int. Cong. on Large rock for embankment fill, and its compaction control. Proc. 13th
Dams, Lausanne 1, 1373–1389. Int. Conf. Soil Mech. Found. Engng, New Delhi 6, 195–206.
Penman, A. D. M. & Hussain, A. (1984). Deflection measurements Vaughan, P. R. (1994b). 34th Rankine Lecture: Assumption, predic-
of the upstream asphaltic membrane of Marchlyn dam. Water tion and reality in geotechnical engineering. Géotechnique 44,
Power Dam Constr. 36, No. 9, pp. 33–37. No. 4, 573–609.
Penman, A. D. M. & Mitchell, P. B. (1970). Initial behaviour of Watts, K. S. & Charles, J. A. (2003). Investigation of restored
Scammonden dam. Trans. 10th Int. Cong. on Large Dams, opencast mine backfill: long-term settlement. Proc. 13th Eur.
Montreal, 1, 723–747. Conf. Soil Mech. Geotech. Engng, Prague 1, 273–278.
Penman, A. D. M., Burland, J. B. & Charles, J. A. (1971). Observed Williams, H. & Stothard, J. N. (1967). Rock excavation and
and predicted deformations in a large embankment dam during specification trials for the Lancashire-Yorkshire motorway, York-
construction. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs 49, No. 1, 1–21. shire (West Riding) section. Proc. Instn Civ. Engrs 36, No. 3,
Penman, A. D. M., Charles, J. A. & Humphreys, J. D. (1982). 607–631.
Sandstone rockfill in two dams. Trans. 14th Int. Cong. on Large Wilson, A. C. & Evans, J. D. (1990). The use of low grade rockfill
Dams, Rio de Janeiro 4, 279–291. at Roadford dam. Proc. 6th Conf. British Dam Soc., Nottingham,
Perry, J., Pedley, M. & Reid, M. (2001). Infrastructure embank- 21–27.
ments: Condition appraisal and remedial treatment, CIRIA Wilson, A. C. & Robertshaw, A. C. (1998). Winscar dam: investiga-
Report C550. London: Construction Industry Research and tions and repairs to asphaltic concrete membrane. Proc. 10th
Information Association. Conf. British Dam Soc., Bangor, 292–302.
Rankine, W. J. M. (1864). A manual of civil engineering, 3rd edn.
London: C. Griffin & Company.
Rawlinson, R. & Beardmore, N. (1864). Sheffield Waterworks fail-
ure – Dale Dike or Bradfield reservoir: Report on the failure VOTE OF THANKS
and bursting of a reservoir embankment belonging to the Shef- Professor J. B. BURLAND, Emeritus Professor, Imperial
field Waterworks Company, on the night of Friday, 11th March College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
1864. Presented to Parliament by Her Majesty’s Command, 20 Dr Andrew Charles is the fourth Rankine Lecturer from
May 1864.
Routh, C. D. (1988) The investigation, identification and repair of
the Building Research Establishment. If we look a little
the asphaltic concrete facing of Winscar dam. Trans. 16th Int. more closely at the statistics we find that no less than 10
Cong. on Large Dams, San Francisco 2, 655–677. Rankine Lecturers spent their ‘formative geotechnical years’
Skempton, A. W. (1989). Keynote address: Historical development at BRE. The precise definition of the phrase ‘formative
of British embankment dams to 1960. Proceedings of the geotechnical years’ is deliberately vague. I hope that my
conference on clay barriers for embankment dams, London, pp. colleagues at Imperial College will forgive me if I say that,
15–52. according to my interpretation of the meaning of that phrase,

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570 CHARLES
this score of 10 even beats Imperial College’s contribution to assessing safety. As noted by Dr Charles, this topic of
the geotechnical formation of Rankine Lecturers! condition assessment of old embankment dams is a very
There is another statistic that, in this case, is unarguable. large one, and would warrant a major lecture in its own
Whereas most previous Lecturers (whether formed at BRE right. He has only touched lightly on the substantial con-
or not) have presented outstanding individual contributions, tribution that he himself has made to this subject.
those working at BRE have each described outstanding team Listening to the lecture I was struck by the long period of
efforts with themselves as leaders of their respective teams. time of some of the monitoring records. Many of the records
The previous three BRE Lecturers were Dr Leonard Cooling extend for 20 years or more. In some cases, if these records
(the 2nd Lecture), Dr Bill Ward (the 18th Lecture) and Dr had not extended for that length of time, erroneous conclu-
Arthur Penman (the 26th Lecture). This evening’s Rankine sions could have emerged from the monitoring.
Lecture is a vintage product of the BRE stable, and empha- I believe that the findings that Dr Charles has presented
sises once more the importance of field studies in geo- this evening have implications that extend well beyond our
technical engineering—studies that can be carried out only own speciality of geotechnics. In the developed world we
by skilled and dedicated teams. have the vital but non-glamorous task of assessing the safety
Karl Terzaghi never lost an opportunity to stress how con- and fitness of ageing infrastructure. Monitoring over such
tinued progress in our discipline depends on field measurements lengthy periods of time is very important to a proper under-
and observations. At the beginning of the second Rankine standing of the processes of ageing, in order to develop
Lecture, Dr Leonard Cooling—the founder of British soil adequate ‘diagnostic techniques’—or, in his own words, ‘in
mechanics—emphasised that field measurements on full-scale order to understand what is normal behaviour and what is
structures give insight into the behaviour of soils that provide abnormal behaviour’. This is true not only of earthworks
the engineer with what he called ‘diagnostic techniques’; today and geotechnics but in many other areas of civil engineering
we might call them ‘calibrated modelling techniques’. as well, including bridges, water supply, drainage and flood
This evening Dr Charles has demonstrated very clearly protection. We can, and are, developing monitoring techni-
how field measurements on fills provide such ‘diagnostic ques; some are very sophisticated. But it seems to me,
techniques’, whether it be in assessing the collapse potential listening to Dr Charles, that the difficulty is to interpret the
of opencast mining backfill, the deformation of rockfill measurements correctly. The challenge to our profession is
dams, the effectiveness of ground treatment of deep fills, or how to ensure that well-focused research programmes of
the condition assessment of old embankment dams. long-term monitoring are set up, funded and above all led
As so often happens with field measurements, there are by engineers of the calibre and dedication of our 48th
surprises in some of the results we have seen this evening. Rankine Lecturer. It is clear that such programmes are
For example, even with creep settlement taking place, time needed to better develop the ‘diagnostic techniques’ referred
alone does not reduce collapse potential for a backfilled to by Dr Cooling. I trust that BRE will continue to play a
opencast mine. Perhaps counter-intuitively, construction vital role in such programmes.
movements of embankment dams are much easier to predict On a personal note, Andrew has been a member of the
than their response to reservoir impounding, which is shown Institution of Civil Engineers’ Reservoirs Committee since
to be dominated by the nature and location of the watertight 1996. This committee has a statutory responsibility for
element and the orientation of the impounding loads. recommending the appointment of civil engineers for evalu-
Dr Charles’s extensive investigations of ground treatment ating the safety of new and existing reservoirs in the UK. It
methods have shown that the assessment of their effective- is an onerous and highly responsible task. In my capacity as
ness must be ‘evidence based’ and directed at a demon- Vice-President, Engineering, of ICE I had the interesting
strable reduction in collapse potential. and, at times, challenging task of chairing that committee
The work on the condition assessment of old embankment from 2003 to 2005. I can say from personal experience that
dams is of outstanding importance, as very difficult deci- Andrew is very highly respected by his colleagues. His
sions have to be made about their safety, based on non- contributions to that committee have been authoritative, wise
intrusive investigations. The simple models that Dr Charles and full of common sense. I know you will agree with me
has developed to explain the relationship between long-term that this evening’s lecture has been rich in all these three
crest settlement and operational cycles of water level will be attributes. It is with the utmost pleasure that I propose a
of great interest and value to civil engineers charged with hearty vote of thanks to Dr Andrew Charles.

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[doi: 10.1680/geot.2008.58.7.

Introduction for 48th Rankine Lecture 19 March 2008

The 48th Rankine Lecture of the British Geotechnical

Having graduated in civil engineering at Imperial College in

INTRODUCTION exaggeration can establish an important point, and biogra-

Nevertheless, despite these limitations, case histories have a Significance of fill

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

Structure Location Purpose Date built Height: m Volume: Surface area:

Silbury Hill Wiltshire, England Unknown pre-2000 BC 40 0.25 2

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

Settlement as percentage of height of fill

Fig. 2. Settlement of fills (after Meyerhof, 1951)

model can be derived for self-weight creep: that is to say,

where ˜s is the settlement of fill of height H between times

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Horsley C

Table 2. Opencast mining backfills

(a) Coarse backfills

Location Fill type Silt and rd : w: % rs : n: % Va: %

Horsley Mudstone and sandstone 10 1.70 7 2.54 33 21

(b) Clay backfills

Ilkeston 19 12–25 23 41 150

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

A9 98.6 38.0 60.6 1961 46 0.31 0.40 Oldest

Surface settlement as percentage of depth of fill

700 Fig. 6. Long-term surface settlement of opencast backfill at

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

0 13 Settlement of opencast mining backfill at Blindwells

Delivered by ICEVirtualLibrary.com to:

Depth below ground level: m 20

Fig. 10. Comparison of settlement with depth at gauges C11

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C 14 shows the settlement measured at various depths within

5 late 1976 followed a period of heavy rainfall. The average

1978; Burford & Charles, 1991).

inundation test the fill surface settled 165 mm in 6 months,

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Settlement of colliery spoil at Coalville

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British rockfill dams

Table 4. Field placement of rockfill

Dam Date built Height: m Rockfill Vibrating roller

Layer depth: m Number of passes Weight: t

Scammonden 1969 73 Sandstone/mudstone 0.9 5 11.5

Table 5. Field density of rockfill

Location rd : Mg/m3 w: % rs : Mg/m3 n: % Va: %

Scammonden 2.02 7 2.69 25 11

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over both the rockfill and the moraine, forming an impound-

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Fig. 19. Construction settlement against height on centreline of 1

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Eqn (3) Eqn (4)

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monitored at three dams with upstream asphaltic mem-

Fig. 27. Movements during reservoir impounding at Winscar

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3 rate observed at the other four dams. This additional settle-

Date Res head: m

60 1 November 1989 14·6

2 April 1991 33 (full)

2002); nevertheless, by May 2001 the crest had settled