IRIS INSTRUMENTS
Dam managers are often hesitant to order 3D studies because they fear a significant increase in the cost of the intervention. However, a 3D visualization of the conductive zones inside, beneath and laterally of the infrastructure brings key information to the understanding of the seepages phenomena within the dam. Service work operators, when provided with reliable instruments, can master the methods of deploying devices to lead to 3D imaging almost effortlessly.
There are many examples in the literature of 3D studies that have saved valuable time for the dam manager. One example is of Al Ja’rana Water Reservoir, located in Makkah Al-Mukarramah Province, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, presented at SAGEEP conference in 2017 (Tayyab et al., 2017).
Hundreds of electrodes were hammered at 5 m spacing around the embarkment (black dots), along the upstream and downstream slopes and on toe part of the embarkment. Data have been recorded with two different electrodes designs (3D pole-dipole and 3D dipole-dipole) to covert all possible combination of readings. More than 36,000 measurements were done on two blocks of 72 electrodes …more