• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제36권4호
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• pp.401-419
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• 2010

This paper focuses on the development, verification and application of a three-dimensional nite element code for coupled thermal and structural analysis of roller compacted concrete arch dams. The Ostour Arch dam located on Ghezel-Ozan River, Iran, which was originally designed as conventional concrete arch dam, has been taken for the purpose of verication of the nite element code. In this project, RCC technology has been ascertained as an alternative method to reduce the cost of the project and make it competitive. The thermal analysis has been carried out taking into account the simulation of the sequence of construction, environmental temperature changes, and the wind speed. In addition, the variation of elastic modulus with time has been considered in this investigation using Concard's model. An attempt was made to compare the stresses developed in the dam body five years after the completion of the dam with those of end of the construction. It was seen that there is an increase in the tensile stresses after five years over stresses obtained immediately at the end of construction by 61.3%.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제11권5호
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• pp.397-407
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• 2021

This paper investigates the optimal sensor placements and capabilities of this procedure for dynamic characteristics identification of arch dams. For this purpose, a prototype arch dam is constructed in laboratory conditions. Berke arch dam located on the Ceyhan River in city of Osmaniye is one of the highest arch dam constructed in Turkey is selected for field verification. The ambient vibration tests are conducted using initial candidate sensor locations at the beginning of the study. Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition and Stochastic Subspace Identification methods are used to extract experimental dynamic characteristics. Then, measurements are repeated according to optimal sensor locations of the dams. These locations are specified using the Effective Independence Method. To determine the optimal sensor locations, the target mode shape matrices which are obtained from ambient vibration tests of the selected dam with a large number of accelerometers are used. The dynamic characteristics obtained from each ambient vibrations tests are compared with each other. It is concluded that the dynamic characteristics obtained from initial measurements and those obtained from a limited number of sensors are compatible with each other. This situation indicates that optimal sensor placements determined by the Effective Independence Method are useful for dynamic characteristics identification of arch dams.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제21권4호
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• pp.423-435
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• 2005

A modal approach is proposed for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dam-reservoir systems in frequency domain. The technique relies on mode shapes extracted by considering the symmetric parts of total mass and stiffness matrices. Based on this method, a previously developed program is modified, and the response of Morrow Point arch dam is studied for various conditions. The method is proved to be very effective and it is an extremely convenient modal technique for dynamic analysis of concrete arch dams.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• 제7권3호
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• pp.353-371
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• 2018

The Wavenumber or more accurately Wavenumber-FD approach was initially introduced for two-dimensional dynamic analysis of concrete gravity dam-reservoir systems. The technique was formulated in the context of pure finite element programming in frequency domain. Later on, a variation of the method was proposed which was referred to as Wavenumber-TD approach suitable for time domain type of analysis. Recently, it is also shown that Wavenumber-FD approach may be applied for three-dimensional dynamic analysis of concrete arch dam-reservoir systems. In the present study, application of its variation (i.e., Wavenumber-TD approach) is investigated for three-dimensional problems. The method is initially described. Subsequently, the response of idealized Morrow Point arch dam-reservoir system is obtained by this method and its special cases (i.e., two other well-known absorbing conditions) for time harmonic excitation in stream direction. All results for various considered cases are compared against the exact response for models with different values of normalized reservoir length and reservoir base/sidewalls absorptive conditions.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• 제7권4호
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• pp.295-317
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• 2020

Investigation of the stability of arch dam abutments is one of the most important aspects in the analysis of this type of dams. To this end, the Bakhtiari dam, a doubly curved arch dam having six wedges at each of its abutments, is selected. The seismic safety of dam abutments is studied through time history analysis using the design-based earthquake (DBE) and maximum credible earthquake (MCE) hazard levels. Londe limit equilibrium method is used to calculate the stability of wedges in abutments. The thrust forces are obtained using ABAQUS, and stability of wedges is calculated using the code written within MATLAB. Effects of foundation flexibility, grout curtain performance, vertical component of earthquake, nonlinear behavior of materials, and geometrical nonlinearity on the safety factor of the abutments are scrutinized. The results show that the grout curtain performance is the main affecting factor on the stability of the abutments, while nonlinear behavior of the materials is the least affecting factor amongst others. Also, it is resulted that increasing number of the contraction joints can improve the seismic stability of dam. A cap is observed on the number of joints, above which the safety factor does not change incredibly.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제32권5호
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• pp.319-338
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• 2023

The study presents a new hybrid data-driven method by combining radial basis functions neural networks (RBF-NN) with the Jaya algorithm (JA) to provide effective structural health monitoring of arch dams. The novelty of this approach lies in that only one user-defined parameter is required and thus can increase its effectiveness and efficiency, as compared to other machine learning techniques that often require processing a large amount of training and testing model parameters and hyper-parameters, with high time-consuming. This approach seeks rapid damage detection in arch dams under dynamic conditions, to prevent potential disasters, by utilizing the RBF-NNN to seamlessly integrate the dynamic elastic modulus (DEM) and modal parameters (such as natural frequency and mode shape) as damage indicators. To determine the dynamic characteristics of the arch dam, the JA sequentially optimizes an objective function rooted in vibration-based data sets. Two case studies of hyperbolic concrete arch dams were carefully designed using finite element simulation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the RBF-NN model, in conjunction with the Jaya algorithm. The testing results demonstrated that the proposed methods could exhibit significant computational time-savings, while effectively detecting damage in arch dam structures with complex nonlinearities. Furthermore, despite training data contaminated with a high level of noise, the RBF-NN and JA fusion remained the robustness, with high accuracy.

• Advances in Computational Design
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• 제3권1호
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• pp.87-112
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• 2018

In this study, it is aimed to present engineering software to estimate the structural response of concrete arch dam. Type-1 concrete arch dam constructed in the laboratory is selected as a reference model. Finite element analyses and experimental measurements are conducted to show the accuracy of initial model. Dynamic analyses are carried out by spectrum analysis under empty reservoir case considering soil-structure interaction and fixed foundation condition. The displacements, principal stresses and strains are presented as an analysis results at all nodal points on downstream and upstream faces of dam body. It is seen from the analyses that there is not any specific ratio between prototype and scaled models for each nodal point with different scale values. So, dynamic analyses results cannot be generalized with a single formula. To eliminate this complexity, the regression analysis, which is a statistical method to obtain the real model results according to the prototype model by using fitting curves, is used. The regression analysis results are validated by numerical solutions using ANSYS software and the error percentages are examined. It is seen that 10% error rates are not exceeded.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• 제1권3호
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• pp.227-237
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• 2013

Modal testing, widely accepted and applied method for determining the dynamic characteristics of structures for operational conditions, uses known or unknown vibrations in structures. The method's common applications includes estimation of dynamic characteristics and also damage detection and monitoring of structural performance. In this study, the structural identification of concrete arch dams is determined using ambient vibration tests which is one of the modal testing methods. For the purpose, several ambient vibration tests are conducted to an arch dam. Sensitive accelerometers were placed on the different points of the crest and a gallery of the dam, and signals are collected for the process. Enhanced Frequency Domain Decomposition technique is used for the extraction of natural frequencies, mode shapes and damping ratios. A total of eight natural frequencies are attained by experimentally for each test setup, which ranges between 0-12 Hz. The results obtained from each ambient vibration tests are presented and compared with each other in detail. There is a good agreement between the results for all measurements. However, the theoretical fundamental frequency of Berke Arch Dam is a little different from the experimental.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제28권4호
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• pp.411-442
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• 2008

Ground motions in near source region of large crustal earthquakes are significantly affected by rupture directivity and tectonic fling. These effects are the strongest at longer periods and they can have a significant impact on Engineering Structures. In this paper, it is aimed to determine near-fault ground motion effects on the nonlinear response of dams including dam-reservoir-foundation interaction. Four different types of dam, which are gravity, arch, concrete faced rockfill and clay core rockfill dams, are selected to investigate the near-fault ground motion effects on dam responses. The behavior of reservoir is taken into account by using Lagrangian approach. Strong ground motion records of Duzce (1999), Northridge (1994) and Erzincan (1992) earthquakes are selected for the analyses. Displacements, maximum and minimum principal stresses are determined by using the finite element method. The displacements and principal stresses obtained from the four different dam types subjected to these nearfault strong-ground motions are compared with each other. It is seen from the results that near-fault ground motions have different impacts on the dam types.

• Computers and Concrete
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.633-648
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• 2014

The seismic safety of concrete dams is one of the important problems in the engineering due to the vast socio-economic disasters which may be caused by collapse of these infrastructures. The accuracy of the risk evaluation associated with these existing dams as well as the efficient design of future dams is highly dependent on a proper understanding of their behaviour due to earthquakes. This paper develops an anisotropic damage model for arch dam under strong earthquakes. The modified Drucker-Prager criterion is adopted as the failure criteria of the dynamic damage evolution of concrete. Some process fields and other necessary information for the safety evaluation are obtained. The numerical results show that the seismic behaviour of concrete dams can be satisfactorily predicted.