After ten major floods over a period of 100 years, the 1913 flood of record claimed 367 lives resulting in over 100 million dollars in damage. The Miami Conservancy District (MCD) was created in 1915 and subsequently built five flood control dams and 73 miles of levees to control future flood waters. The Taylorsville Dam was one of these five flood control dams constructed, between 1918 and 1922, using a hydraulic fill method of construction creating a clay core. In response to regulations issued in 1981 and flood routing studies, it was determined that Probable Maximum Flood could reach the crest of the dam, and thus cause instability and potential breaching of the dam.
Based on various evaluations, it was determined that a combination of downstream relief wells in conjunction with a cutoff wall to extend the dam core to the crest of the dam would provide the necessary dam improvements. This paper discusses why a self-hardening slurry cutoff wall was the selected method of extending the dam core, its desired performance characteristics, construction and quality control procedures, and a summary of the quality control testing.
This project also represents a good application on the use of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) as a major construction material because of its low permeability and high strength characteristics. For this application, a standard cement based self hardening slurry would not have been capable of meeting the required performance characteristics.