Qhafor Ameen Hamasur

Chapter One
Introduction
4- Determining water table level.
5- Transporting the core samples to the laboratory for detailed study.
6- Determining the altitude and fixing the location of the boreholes by
GPSMAP 60CSx.
1-5-2- Laboratory work
Laboratory work included petrographic inspection, determining the strength
properties of the rocks (from surface sections and boreholes), furthermore other
descriptive and numerical studies were done on boreholes.
Petrographic inspection included making thin sections for study under the
microscope, then classifying the carbonate rocks in the dam site according to
Folk’s (1962) classification which is suitable for the Hoek-Brown failure criterion
elements, such as material constant (mi) and modulus ratio (MR) of intact rock.
The strength properties included conducting the point load and the unconfined
(uniaxial) compression tests to find the unconfined compressive strength of the
intact rock.
The descriptive and numerical studies on boreholes comprised information
about GSI and counting the number of discontinuities and measuring their dip
angle with respect to the borehole axis in each rock mass unit.
1-5-3- Office work
The office work included representation and analysis of the field and
laboratory information and measurements, wherein some rock mass classification
parameters which were obtained descriptively were converted into rated
parameters, such as GSI, discontinuities roughness, weathering of the
discontinuity surfaces, infilling material, discontinuity persistence, water condition
and discontinuities orientation.
Other parameters that were obtained numerically were also rated according
to the weight of each one in the classification system, such as uniaxial
compressive strength, RQD and discontinuity spacing. Furthermore some
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