The Study of the Foundation Role in the Seismic Nonlinear Behavior of Concrete Gravity Dams

Abstract eng:
During the recent years, the seismic nonlinear behavior of concrete gravity dams was in the center of consideration of dam engineers. Numerous researches have been conducted in order to determine how the dams behave against the seismic loads. Many achievements were obtained in the process of analysis and design of concrete dams. In this paper, we study the dam-reservoir-foundation interaction during an earthquake. For this purpose, a two-dimensional finite element model of a concrete gravity dam including the dam body, a part of its foundation and a part of the reservoir was made. In addition, the proper boundary conditions were used in both reservoir and foundation in order to absorb the energy of waves at the far end boundaries. Using the finite element method and smeared crack approach, some different seismic nonlinear analyses were done to study the impact of the foundation mass and flexibility on the seismic behavior of the dam. The results show that both the foundation mass and flexibility have an outstanding impact on the nonlinear behavior of dams and therefore it is necessary to consider the foundation effect while analyzing concrete dams.

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