Deformation Analysis at Embankment Dams with Interferometric SAR (InSAR) and Finite Element Model (FEM)
Aminjafari, Saeed1; Motagh, Mahdi2; Baes, Marzieh1; Haghshenas, Mahmud1
1University of Tehran, IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF; 2GFZ, GERMANY

Frequent deformation monitoring of embankment dams and their reservoirs is important to implement effective early warning and preventive measure to identify and mitigate the risk of dam failure. Destruction or any damage of embankments is disastrous and leads to enormous financial and/or human fatalities. In this paper, we evaluate the potential of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) for dam monitoring and perform structural analysis using Finite Element Modeling (FEM) approach. Two case studies are considered: The first one is a clay core dam near Tehran (capital of Iran) named Taleghan Dam, for which we used 23 ASAR images of Envisat sensors between years 2003 to 2008. The other case study is another clay core dam named Masjed Soleiman Dam in Khouzestan province, southwest of Iran, for which we used 19 ASAR images of Envisat sensors between years 2003 to 2010.
For the InSAR time-series analysis, we use the Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) approach. The results of InSAR time-series are compared with GPS for validation and accuracy assessment. Finally, the internal stress and strain of the dams are analyzed using Finite Element Method (FEM) with additional boundary conditions obtained from laboratory tests and field measurements to calibrate the constitutive soil model.