Bond-breaker impact on slab behaviour in concrete face dams

The actual technique of construction of concrete face slabs of concrete face rockfill dams and concrete face gravel dams is oriented to the protection of the upstream slope by a series of concrete extruded curbs. The face slab leans on these curbs and in the current designs a bond-breaker element is placed between the face slab and the curbs in order to break the stress transference between them. The main aim of this research is to highlight the importance of this treatment while at the same time a technical analysis of the transference of stresses is done by generating a model of the face slab that studies the cases of: not placing a bond-breaker element, placing a partially bond breaker and a total bond breaker, between the face slab and the concrete curbs. In addition, the relevance of the angle of the upstream slope onto which the face slab leans has been also analysed.