1- The Wolf Creek dam was placed on a karstic limestone formation. To address fi
ID: 285551 • Letter: 1
Question
1-
The Wolf Creek dam was placed on a karstic limestone formation. To address fissures, the designers specified that these fissures be filled with clay. Develop an argument to defend this design decision and develop an argument to critique this decision
2- Groundwater rise above the water table is often approximated by assuming the soil acts as capillary tubes. How the water level rise look if this assumption were true? Would it be uniform or varied? What would the shape of this rise look like? Is this a valid assumption? Why or why not?
3- Based on a quaternary map of Illinois, choose a suitable place to locate an industrial facility that could potentially pollute groundwater. Choose a less advantageous location. Show the locations on a map.
Explanation / Answer
1. The argument defending the decision is that the clay is easily bendable and will fill the fractures and other pores that are there in the limestone.
The issue with using clay is that in disperses in the presence of water and this dispersion of clay will take place when it interacts with water.
2. Normally there are very small radius capillaries are present in soil and we can assume the soil as the bundle of these capillaries. So basically the water rises when the adhesion force is high and it will look how the oil rises in a wick. If we apply this in reality then the rise is not constant as the radius would be different of different capillaries present at different place. We will be seeing a concave shape as water forms cancave meniscus. The assumption is valid for calculation as we can remove the difference in the radius when we’ll be taking the mean of the radius.
3. There were some issues with the quaternary map of Illinois, but still areas where Lake Michigan formation is present, are the areas which are more susceptible of ground water pollution as it is a sandy formation where percolation takes place very rapidly.
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