SESMIC RESPONSE PREDICATION OF CONCRETE ARCH

DAM
Manish Sharma
M. Tech. (Earthquake Engineering)
Department of Civil Engineering
Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), New Delhi, India 110025
E-mail:smanish337@gmail.com, Mobile: +91 – 7557420039

Dr. Md. Imteyaz Ansari

Assistant professor
Department of Civil Engineering
Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University), New Delhi, India 110025
E-mail:imteyazcivil@gmail.com, Mobile: +91 – 8791246758

ABSTRACT
The performance evaluation of concrete arch dam under dynamic excitation is a challenging task which
requires the comprehensive knowledge of modeling aspects. This paper summarizes important and
critical parameters to be considered during dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams. A comprehensive
review work is carried out in order to identify the factors which influence significantly the three –
dimensional analysis of arch dams.

KEYWORDS
Concrete Arch Dam, Dynamic Analysis, Performance Evaluation, Earthquake Ground Motion.

1. INTRODUCTION
The consequence of a large dam failure can be a disastrous event; therefore, design a dam
is an important and challenging task for engineering community. Although the observed
performance of the concrete dams have been found to be satisfactory during the past
earthquakes, but many of them have suffered with severe cracks. Also, it is important to
recognize the fact that these structures have not been seriously tested- in this sense that very
rarely has a large earthquake occurred close to a major concrete dam with a full reservoir.

However, M6.5 earthquake did occur close to Koyna Dam- a large concrete gravity dam
in India in 1967 and Hsinfengkiang Dam-a strengthened concrete buttress dam in china in 1962.
A M7.6 earthquake occurred in 1990 near Sefidrud dam-a large concrete buttress dam in Iran.
All dams were overstressed by the earthquake damaged to an alarming degree. Pacoima dam, a
concrete arch dam, sustained damage to one abutment during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake,
it reservoir was only partially full at the time. These experiences with the earthquake
performance of these dams are not immune to earthquake damage as had commonly been
presumed. Thus it is essential that increasing attention be given to the earthquake safety of these
structure.

The dynamic analysis of a dam plays an important role in the seismic design of new dam
and the seismic safety evaluation of existing dams especially for gravity and arch dams. The
analysis model should consider the dynamics interactions among dam, semi-unbounded
foundation rock and semi-unbounded reservoir (Chopra, 2012).However, due to the complexity
of arch dam-reservoir-foundation rock systems; numerical model is inevitably filled with
assumptions. Determine the extent to which the developed numerical models may be true
representative of the actual systems is still challenging problems major difficulty lies in
rationally defining the variations in ground motion over height. The ground motion record at
several arch dam, such as the Pacoima dam (Alves and Hall, 2006) and Mauvoisin dam provides
an opportunity to verify parameters’ to be considered while dynamic analysis of a concrete arch
dam.

2. CRITICAL FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED IN DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF

CONCRETE ARCH DAMS

Dynamics Analysis of arch dam is complicated and challenging task because the
modelling and analysis of arch dam needs to be carried out as three –dimensional system. The
following factors should be considered in seismic analysis of arch dams.

2.1 DAM –WATER INTERACTION

Dam-water interaction and water compressibility effects are properly considered in the
dynamics analysis, the hydrodynamics effects are generally important in the response of arch
dam so more than for gravity dam. When hydrodynamics effects considered, tensile stress in
dam due to upstream ground motion are more than doubled (Chopra, 2012).

2.2 DAM- FOUNDATION INTERACTION

In standard finite element analysis the foundation rock is assumed to be mass less. These
extremely simple idealizations of the foundation rock, in which only its flexibility is considered
but inertial and damping effects are ignored, is popular because the foundation impedance matrix
is very difficult to determine without restoring to these assumptions. Computation of this
foundation impedance matrix for analysis of arch dam requires solution of a series of mixed
boundary value problems governing the steady-state response of the canyon cut in a three –
dimensional half space. Such solutions have been incorporated in substructure methods for
analysis of dam-water-foundation systems (Chopra and Tan, 1992).

2.3 RESERVIOR BOUNDARY ABSORPTION

Finite-element analysis techniques do not recognize the partial absorption of

hydrodynamics pressure waves by the sediments invariably deposited at the reservoir bottom and
sides or even by the rock underlying the reservoir. In general, assuming a non-absorptive (rigid)
reservoir boundary leads to an unrealistically large response for dams with impounded water,
particularly due to vertical and cross – stream ground motion.

2.4 WATER COMPRESSIBILITY

Dynamics analysis of dam, Westegaard’s (1933) formula for added hydrodynamics mass
is commonly adopted. It is based on three assumptions that are usually not satisfied.
1. Dam is rigid
2. Dam is straight in plan and has a vertical upstream face.
3. Water is incompressible.
Although this concept has been used in practical dam analysis the range of condition for
which it is valid was not well understood, and during the past three decades extensive research
has been devoted to this quarry. The assumptions of a straight dam with vertical upstream face
obviously ignore the curvature of an arch dam which can significantly influence hydrodynamics
pressure. Therefore, numerical methods considering arbitrary geometry of upstream dam face
and the reservoir were developed to determine an added hydrodynamics mass matrix to be used
in conjunction with finite element analysis of dams (Kuo, 1982). However, recent research has
reconfirmed earlier results and further demonstrated that water compressibility effects would be
significant in seismic response of concrete dams.
3. LOAD PROFILE AND REQUIRED MODIFICATION

As it was necessary to choose a suitable lateral loading pattern to apply on the structure,
for this purpose a uniform lateral loading pattern is applied along the height of the structure. The
magnitude of this uniform pressure is increased incrementally until the structure reaches
collapse. An alternate approach would be to use a different lateral loading pattern which could be
considered a suitable field of study for further research. The weight W used in this equation
should take into account the effect of Hydrodynamic interaction; i.e. the interaction between the
reservoir and the dam during an earthquake. This interaction has a significant effect on the
earthquake response of the dam and must be considered in any dynamic analysis. Because the
inertia force of a structure is a function of acceleration and mass, hydrodynamic interaction has a
larger influence on thinner and less massive dams. In such structures the ratio of the water mass
to the structure’s mass is higher; hence the structural response will be more influenced by the
water mass.
In general Westergaard's added mass formulation is used to take this interaction into
account. The added-mass representation of dam-water interaction during earthquake ground
shaking was first introduced by Westergaard (1933). Westergaard showed that the hydrodynamic
pressure exerted on the face of the dam due to the earthquake ground motion is equivalent to the
inertia forces of a body of water attached to the dam and moving back and forth with the dam
while the rest of reservoir water remains inactive. He suggested a parabolic shape for this body
of water with a base width equal to 7/8 of the height; a general form of the Westergaard added-
mass concept which accounts for the 3D geometry (Clough, 1977; Kuo, 1982) can be applied to
the earthquake analysis of arch dams. The general formulation is based on the same parabolic
pressure distribution with depth used by Westergaard with the exception that it makes use of the
fact that the normal hydrodynamic pressure at any point on the curved surface of the dam is
proportional to the total normal acceleration:

7
𝐻(𝑦) = 𝜌 √ℎ (ℎ − 𝑦) 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑦 ≤ ℎ𝑤
8 𝑤 𝑤 𝑤
In which 𝜌𝑤 is the density of water, hw is reservoir depth, and y is height measured
from base of the dam.
 The normal pressure at each point is then converted to an equivalent normal
hydrodynamic force by multiplying by the tributary area associated with that point. Finally, the
normal hydrodynamic force is resolved to its Cartesian components, from which a full 3x3
added-mass matrix at each nodal point on the upstream face of the dam is obtained (Kuo, 1982):

Note that while the added-mass terms are coupled with respect to the nodal degrees-of-
freedom, they are uncoupled with respect to individual nodes. Such a 3x3 full nodal added-mass
matrix can easily be incorporated in a computer program using consistent mass matrix (non-
diagonal), but it should be generalized for those programs that employ diagonal mass matrix.

4. FINITE ELEMENT MODEL OF THE ARCH DAM

Modeling and analysis of the dam-foundation structure has been performed using
nonlinear FE program. The arrangement of finite element meshes and nodes is shown in Fig.
2.The section of dam and finite foundation domain (1200 m long, 500 m deep and 980m wide)
are modeled with CPS4R elements in a general purpose finite element program known as
ABAQUS. Number of element in dam section and foundation are 417and 79140, respectively on
the basis of mess convergence study. The base of dam is tied to the foundation with the
consideration of no sliding condition at the dam- foundation in all analysis.

Loading on the dam section in the finite element analysis is applied in two steps:

1. Hydrostatic and gravity loads.

2. Hydrodynamics and inertia loads by considering horizontal component of each time

history.
 Figure 3.1. Finite element model of dam-foundation system

5. SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS

This Paper summarizes important and critical parameters to be considered during

dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams. The following are the important concluding remarks are
integrated in this study:

1. By neglecting water compressibility, the stress may be significantly underestimated for

some dams or overestimated for others.
2. By neglecting mass and damping in foundation-rock, the stresses may be overestimated
by factor of 2-3.
3. The seismic analysis of concrete arch dam must include the following factors:-semi-
unbounded size of reservoir and foundation rock, dam-water interaction, hydrodynamics
wave absorption at the reservoirs boundary, water compressibility, dam–foundation
 interaction, variation of ground motion at dam–rock interface, material non-linearity;
however, most finite elements analysis of dams conducted in professional practice are
based on commercial software, which ignore these parameters.

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