Discussion on Hydraulic Fracturing Identification of Clay Core Rockfill Dams

In this paper, a clay core rockfill dam is analyzed with numerical method based on Biot's consolidation theory.The mechanism of the hydraulic fracturing is discussed.And the possibility of hydraulic fracturing is analyzed by considering the effective minor principal stress, total minor principal stress and the stress level based on the numerical results of earth core dams.It indicates that the results based on the effective stress method are the same to those based on the total stress.Moreover, the effects of stress level should be taken into count for the judgment, since hydraulic fracturing can be caused by the corewall crack which is induced by the high lateral stress level on the eorewall in upper after impoundment.