Study on the leakage of the clay dam using Ground penetrating radar and Electromagnetic method

The clay dam is fragile and easily found leaking because of the multiple filling and biological damage. When the leakage problem arises, it is critical to find out its causes and solutions to provide the basis for reinforcement. In this paper, there is a reservoir in the mountain area with its clay dam has the possibility of leakage. In order to characterize and delineate the leakage source, we used nondestructive investigation methods including Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Electromagnetic (EM) in this site. By analyzing the integrated results of the methods mentioned above, the leakage source was identified and assigned to a special region. The anomalies caused by leakage and poor compactness in radar profiles were confirmed by EM method. Furthermore, some unreasonable interpretations caused by the artifacts in EM method were also avoided by the comparison with GPR profile, which effectively improved the reliability of the investigation result of each method.