Nonlinear Analysis of a Dam-Reservoir-Foundation System under Spatially Variable Seismic Excitations

Abstract eng:
The safety and stability of concrete gravity dams under strong earthquake shaking has long been an issue of great practical importance, and has attracted and continues to attract considerable research interest. The evaluation of their response to earthquakes requires special attention due to their unique characteristics: (i) Nonlinear behavior of the concrete and foundation rock; (ii) Interaction between the dam, the reservoir, and the foundation; (iii) Unbounded feature of the reservoir and foundation domain; and (iv) Spatial variation of seismic ground motions over distances comparable to the base dimensions of the dam. This paper addresses these issues by developing a computational procedure for studying the effects of the spatial variability of the earthquake motions on the response of concrete gravity dams using the finite element method. The proposed scheme is illustrated with the Koyna Dam in India. The primary results of the evaluation show that diverse response patterns occur when the excitation is uniform or nonuniform. The major differences in the patterns are caused by the pseudo-static response that is induced only by the nonuniform excitations.

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