Uplift and pore pressures are fundamental loading conditions that affect the strength and stability of concrete dams. Historically, these loads have been difficult to quantify and to implement in finite element analysis (FEA). Some dam design guidelines propose different techniques to apply the estimated uplift pressure for its use in FEA of concrete dams. These methodologies are, in general, q...

Aseismic safety of dam involves people’s lives and properties, even has a great impact on national economic development. The key to this project is to have a fairly complete fluid-structure interaction (FSI) theory and a calculation method with a good accuracy. Therefore, focused on the FSI dynamic problem of gravity dam under seismic action, this paper presented the non-linear 2.5D dynamic the...

This study presents shape optimization of a gravity dam imposing stability and principal stress constraints. A gravity dam is a large scale hydraulic structure consisting of huge amount of concrete material. Hence, an optimum design gives a cost-benefit structure due to the fact that small changes in shape of dam cross-section leads to large saving of concrete volume. T...

A procedure is presented for simulating the sequential impoundment process of concrete-faced rockfill dam using nonlinear finite element method. The parameters of constitutive relationship of stress and strain are determined by tri-dimensional compression test in laboratory. The model applied in this study adopts the technique of element birth and death to simulate the sequential impoundment pr...

Sand-cement emerged in the early twentieth century as an alternative binder in infrastructures that required a significant amount of concrete volume in order to reduce the costs associated with portland cement. This binder was first used in the United States in several dams before being applied in Camarasa Dam in Spain. Nearly a century after its construction, the dam exhibits degradation pheno...

Expansions in concrete dams may be caused by chemical or physical sources; however in certain occasions the evidences observed in the dam may not be attributed to a single cause. Mequinenza is an example of a concrete dam affected by expansions and high non-recoverable displacements that cannot be explained by the most frequent pathologies. This paper presents new hypotheses that could justify ...

Making use of concrete materials in cut-off walls, because of their low permeability and standing high Hydraulic Gradient caused by underground drainage, has attracted great amount of attention. Using ordinary concrete with high elasticity modulus, compared to other materials may accompany with problems including brittleness of cutoffs due to dynamic stresses. To solve this problem, adding a ce...