• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.285-296
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• 2020

Dams are important structures for management of water supply for irrigation or drinking, flood control, and electricity generation. In seismic regions, the structural safety of concrete gravity dams is important due to the high potential of life and economic loss if they fail. Therefore, the seismic analysis of existing dams in seismically active regions is crucial for predicting responses of dams to ground motions. In this paper, earthquake response of concrete gravity dams is investigated using the finite element (FE) method. The FE model accounts for dam-water-foundation rock interaction by considering compressible water, flexible foundation effects, and absorptive reservoir bottom materials. Several uncertainties regarding structural attributes of the dam and external actions are considered to obtain the fragility curves of the dam-water-foundation rock system. The structural uncertainties are sampled using the Latin Hypercube Sampling method. The Pine Flat Dam in the Central Valley of Fresno County, California, is selected to demonstrate the methodology for several limit states. The fragility curves for base sliding, and excessive deformation limit states are obtained by performing non-linear time history analyses. Tensile cracking including the complex state of stress that occurs in dams was also considered. Normal, Log-Normal and Weibull distribution types are considered as possible fits for fragility curves. It was found that the effect of the minimum principal stress on tensile strength is insignificant. It is also found that the probability of failure of tensile cracking is higher than that for base sliding of the dam. Furthermore, the loss of reservoir control is unlikely for a moderate earthquake.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.58-66
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• 2016

This study aims to estimate the failure probability of concrete gravity dams for their risk analysis under flood situation. To the end, failure modes of concrete gravity dams and their limit state functions are proposed based on numerous review of domestic and international literatures on the dam failure cases and design standards. Three failure modes are proposed: overturning, sliding, and overstress. Based on the failure modes the limit state functions, the failure probability is assessed for a weir section and a non-weir section of a dam in Korea. As water level is rising from operational condition to extreme flood condition, the failure probability is found to be raised up to the warning condition, especially for overturning mode at the non-weir section. The result can be used to reduce the risk of the dam by random environmental variables under possible flood situation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.20 no.3 s.71
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• pp.174-179
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• 2005

In this paper, a computational model for nonlinear crack damage analysis of concrete gravity dam-foundation boundary region subjected to earthquake loading is suggested. An enhanced model based on the Lee-Fenves plastic-damage model is used as the inelastic material model for a concrete dam structure and rock foundation. The suggested model is implemented numerically and used for computational earthquake simulation of Koyna dam, which was severly damaged from the strong earthquake in 1967. From the numerical result it is demonstrated that the suggested computational model can realistically represent crack initiation and propagation in the dam-foundation boundary region.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.78 no.1
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• pp.53-66
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• 2021

The determination of the damage index to reveal the performance level of a structure can constitute the seismic risk generalization approach based on the parametric analysis. This study implemented this concept to one kind of civil engineering structure that is the concrete gravity dam. Different cases of the structure exhibit their individual responses, which constitute different considerations. Therefore, this approach allows the parametric study of concrete as well as soil for evaluating the seismic nature in the generalized case. To ensure that the target algorithm applicable to most of the concrete gravity dams, a very simple procedure has been considered. In order to develop a correlated algorithm (by response surface methodology; RSM) between the ground motion and the structural property, randomized sampling was adopted through a stochastic method called half-fractional central composite design. The responses in the case of fluid-foundation-dam interaction (FFDI) make it more reliable by introducing the foundation as being bounded by infinite elements. To evaluate the seismic generalization of FFDI models, incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) was carried out under the impacts of various earthquake records, which have been selected from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center data. Here, the displacement-based damage indexed fragility curves have been generated to show the variation in the seismic pattern of the dam. The responses to the sensitivity analysis of the various parameters presented here are the most effective controlling factors for the concrete gravity dam. Finally, to establish the accuracy of the proposed approach, reliable verification was adopted in this study.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.65-79
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• 2011

Concrete hydraulic structures such as: Dams, Intake Towers, Piers and dock are usually recognized as" Vital and Special Structures" that must have sufficient safety margin at critical conditions like when earthquake occurred as same as normal servicing time. Hence, to evaluate hydrodynamic pressures generated due to seismic forces and Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI); introduction to fluid-structure domains and interaction between them are inevitable. For this purpose, first step is exact modeling of water-structure and their interaction conditions. In this paper, the basic equation involved the water-structure-foundation interaction and the effective factors are explained briefly for concrete hydraulic structure types. The finite element modeling of two concrete gravity dams with 5 m, 150 m height, reservoir water and foundation bed rock is idealized and then the effects of fluid domain and bed rock have been investigated on modal characteristic of dams. The analytical results obtained from numerical studies and modal analysis show that the accurate modeling of dam-reservoir-foundation and their interaction considerably affects the modal periods, mode shapes and modal hydrodynamic pressure distribution. The results show that the foundation bed rock modeling increases modal periods about 80%, where reservoir modeling changes modal shapes and increases the period of all modes up to 30%. Reservoir-dam-foundation interaction increases modal period from 30% to 100% for different cases.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.365-377
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• 2010

In the present article, effect of non-uniform excitation due to spatially variation of seismic input on nonlinear response of concrete gravity dams is considered. The reservoir is assumed compressible. Isotropic damage mechanics approach is used to model static and dynamic nonlinear behavior of mass concrete in 2D space. The validity of utilized nonlinear model is considered using available theoretical results under static and dynamic conditions. The tallest monolith of Pine Flat dam is selected as a case study. Two cases are analyzed for considering the effect of limited wave propagation velocity on seismic behavior of the dam-reservoir system in which travelling velocities are chosen as 2000 m/s and infinity. It is found that tensile damage in neck and toe regions and also, in the vicinity of the base increase when the system is excited non-uniformly.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.74-85
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• 2022

The purpose of this paper is to review the applicability of the current standards for the evaluation method of input variables and performance level in seismic performance evaluation by dynamic plastic analysis of the concrete gravity-type dam to which MCE is applied, and to suggest improvements. To this end, a domestic concrete gravity-type dam was selected as a target facility, dynamic plasticity analysis was performed under various conditions, and applicability to input variables such as concrete tensile strength and breaking energy, was reviewed. By analyzing the effect of cracks at the bottom of the gravity dam on the stability of the activity, an improvement plan for the performance level evaluation method required to secure the water storage function was derived. If the proposed improvement plan is applied, it will have the effect of deriving more reasonable evaluation results than the current seismic performance evaluation method to which MCE is applied.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.201-213
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• 2020

Seismic damages that occurred by the effects of epicenter distance of the earthquake are one of the most important problems for the earthquake engineering. In this study, it is aimed to examine the nonlinear seismic behaviors of concrete gravity (CG) dams considering various epicenter distances. For this purpose, Boyabat CG dam that is one of the biggest concrete gravity dams in Turkey is selected as a numerical application. FLAC3D software based on finite difference method is used for modelling and analyzing of the dam. Drucker-Prager nonlinear material model is used for the concrete body and Mohr-Coulomb nonlinear material model is taken into account for the foundation. Special interface elements are used between dam body and foundation to represent interaction condition. Free-field and quiet non-reflecting boundary conditions are utilized for the main surfaces of 3D model. Total 5 various epicenter distances of 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake are considered in 3D earthquake analyses and these distances are 5 km, 11 km, 24 km, 85 km and 93 km, respectively. According to 3D seismic results, x-y-z displacements, principal stresses and shear strain failures of the dam are evaluated in detail. It is clearly seen from this study that the nonlinear seismic behaviors of the CG dams change depending to epicenter distance of the earthquake. Thus, it is clearly recommended in this study that when a CG dam is modelled or analyzed, distance of the earthquake fault to the dam should be strongly examined in detail. Otherwise, earthquake damages can be occurred in the concrete dam body by the effects of seismic loads.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2000.10b
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• pp.1313-1318
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• 2000

Crack behaviors at the downstream face of the concrete gravity dam were studied considering influence of the wintertime air temperature. It is assumed that inside area of 15m away from the dam surface in which temperature is presumed to be $15^{\circ}C$ is not affected from the annual air temperature variation. Water temperature at the upstream face and air temperature at the other faces were considered as outer boundary conditions to get temperature distribution inside of the dam using ADINA-T. These temperature distributions were transferred to FRANC2D to obtain equivalent stress intensity factors and crack propagation paths. Results obtained from changing initial crack locations and direction, air temperatures, and water levels were discussed. And crack behaviors at the upstream face were studied partly.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.4
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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.