Numerical parametric study on the influence of location and inclination of large-scale asperities on the shear strength of concreterock interfaces of small buttress dams

When assessing the sliding stability of a concrete dam,the influence of large-scale asperities in the sliding plane is often ignored due to limitations of the analytical rigid body assessment methods provided by current dam assessment guidelines.However,these asperities can potentially improve the load capacity of a concrete dam in terms of sliding stability.Although their influence in a sliding plane has been thoroughly studied for direct shear,their influence under eccentric loading,as in the case of dams,is unknown.This paper presents the results of a parametric study that used finite element analysis(FEA)to investigate the influence of large-scale asperities on the load capacity of small buttress dams.By varying the inclination and location of an asperity located in the concrete-rock interface along with the strength of the rock foundation material,transitions between different failure modes and correlations between the load capacity and the varied parameters were observed.The results indicated that the inclination of the asperity had a significant impact on the failure mode.When the inclinationwas 30and greater,interlocking occurred between the dam and foundation and the governing failure modes were either rupture of the dam body or asperity.When the asperity inclination was significant enough to provide interlocking,the load capacity of the dam was impacted by the strength of the rock in the foundation through influencing the load capacity of the asperity.The location of the asperity along the concrete-rock interface did not affect the failure mode,except for when the asperity was located at the toe of the dam,but had an influence on the load capacity when the failure occurred by rupture of the buttress or by sliding.By accounting for a single large-scale asperity in the concrete-rock interface of the analysed dam,a horizontal load capacity increase of 30%e160%was obtained,depending on the inclination and location of the asperity and the strength of the foundation material.

The Deformation and Stress Analysis of Na Ba Reservoir Concrete Face Rock-Fill Dam

Based on the APDL （ANSYS Parametric Design Language） and combined with the actual project related to parameters of filling material, imported Duncan-Chang constitutive model which has been widely applied in soil mass and rock-fill in the ANSYS software. With the three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis by the mid-point incremental method, what have been computed are the deformation and stress analysis ofNa Ba reservoir CFRD （Concrete Face Rock-fill Dam） in filling period. The calculation results provide practical reference for the dam during construction safety filling stress and deformation analysis and real-time monitoring.

A combined finite element and deep learning network for structural dynamic response estimation on concrete gravity dam subjected to blast loads

Social infrastructures such as dams are likely to be exposed to high risk of terrorist and military attacks,leading to increasing attentions on their vulnerability and catastrophic consequences under such events.This paper tries to develop advanced deep learning approaches for structural dynamic response prediction and dam health diagnosis.At first,the improved long short-term memory(LSTM)networks are proposed for data-driven structural dynamic response analysis with the data generated by a single degree of freedom(SDOF)and the finite numerical simulation,due to the unavailability of abundant practical structural response data of concrete gravity dam under blast events.Three kinds of LSTM-based models are discussed with the various cases of noise-contaminated signals,and the results prove that LSTM-based models have the potential for quick structural response estimation under blast loads.Furthermore,the damage indicators(i.e.,peak vibration velocity and domain frequency)are extracted from the predicted velocity histories,and their relationship with the dam damage status from the numerical simulation is established.This study provides a deep-learning based structural health monitoring(SHM)framework for quick assessment of dam experienced underwater explosions through blastinduced monitoring data.

Determination of Monitoring Control Value for Concrete Gravity Dam Spatial Deformation Based on POT Model

Deformation can directly reflect the working behavior of the dam,so determining the deformation monitoring control value can effectively monitor the safety of dam operation.The traditional dam deformation monitoring control value only considers the single measuring point.In order to overcome the limitation,this paper presents a new method to determine the monitoring control value for concrete gravity dam based on the deformations of multi-measuring points.A dam’s comprehensive deformation displacement is determined by the measured values at different measuring points on the positive inverted vertical line and the corresponding weight of eachmeasuring point.The projection pursuit method(PPM)combined with the grey wolf optimization(GWO)algorithm is used to determine the weight of each measuring point according to the spatial correlation distribution characteristics of dam deformation.The peaks over threshold(POT)model based on the extreme value theory is adopted to determine the monitoring control value with the obtained dam comprehensive deformation displacement.In addition,the POTmodel is improved with the automatic threshold determinationmethod based on the 3σcriterion in probability theory and the GWO algorithm,which can avoid subjectivity and randomness in determining the threshold.The results of the engineering application show the feasibility and applicability of the proposed method.

The damage to model concrete gravity dams subjected to water explosions

Over the past century,the safety of dams has gradually attracted attention from all parties.Research on the dynamic response and damage evolution of dams under extreme loads is the basis of dam safety issues.In recent decades,scholars have studied the responses of dams under earthquake loads,but there is still much room for improvement in experimental and theoretical research on small probability loads such as explosions.In this paper,a 50-m-high concrete gravity dam is used as a prototype dam,and a water explosion model test of a 2.5-m-high concrete gravity dam is designed.The water pressure and the acceleration response of the dam body in the test are analysed.The pressure characteristics and dynamic response of the dam body are assessed.Taking the dam damage test as an example,a numerical model of concrete gravity dam damage is established,and the damage evolution of the dam body is analysed.By combining experiments and numerical simulations,the damage characteristics of the dam body under the action of different charge water explosions are clarified.The integrity of the dam body is well maintained under the action of a small-quantity water explosion,and the dynamic response of the dam body is mainly caused by the shock wave.Both the shock wave and the bubble pulsation cause the dam body to accelerate,and the peak acceleration of the dam body under the action of the bubble pulsation is only one percent of the peak acceleration of the dam body under the action of the shock wave.When subjected to explosions in large quantities of water,the dam body is seriously damaged.Under the action of a shock wave,the dam body produces a secondary acceleration response,which is generated by an internal interaction after the dam body is damaged.The damage evolution process of the dam body under the action of a large-scale water explosion is analysed,and it is found that the shock wave pressure of the water explosion causes local damage to the dam body facing the explosion.After the peak value of the shock wave,the impulse continues to act on the dam body,causing cumulative damage and damage inside the dam body.

Behavior of traditional concrete dams and three-dimensional printed concrete dams under the debris flow impact

This study investigated the resilience of traditional concrete dams compared to 3D printed concrete dams(3DPC)when subjected to debris flow.Three types of dams,namely check dams,arch dams,and curve dams,were numerically analyzed using a three-dimensional Coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian(CEL)methodology.The research focused on critical factors such as impact force and viscous energy dissipation to compare dam performance.Additionally,the study examined the printing and service phases of 3DPC models,determining potential failure modes and analyzing printing parameters.The results demonstrated that 3DPC dams outperformed traditional concrete dams,with filament deposition orientation,perpendicular to the debris flow direction,identified as a pivotal factor.Infill percentage and pattern were also found to influence the behavior of 3DPC models.Notably,curved dams exhibited superior performance based on dam geometry.These findings have significant potential for advancing the development of resilient dam structures capable of withstanding debris flow impacts.

Refined mathematical model for the breaching of concrete-face sand-gravel dams due to overtopping failure

Overtopping is one of the main reasons for the breaching of concrete-face sand-gravel dams(CFSGDs).In this study,a refined mathematical model was established based on the characteristics of the overtopping breaching of CFSGDs.The model characteristics were as follows:(1)Based on the Renormailzation Group(RNG)k-εturbulence theory and volume of fluid(VOF)method,the turbulent characteristics of the dam-break flow were simulated,and the erosion surface of the water and soil was tracked;(2)In consideration of the influence of the change in the sediment content on the dam-break flow,the dam material transport equation,which could reflect the characteristics of particle settlement and entrainment motion,was used to simulate the erosion process of the sand gravels;(3)Based on the bending moment balance method,a failure equation of the concrete face slab under dead weight and water load was established.The proposed model was verified through a case study on the failure of the Gouhou CFSGD.The results showed that the proposed model could well simulate the erosion mode of the special vortex flow of the CFSGD scouring the support body of the concrete face slab inward and reflect the mutual coupling relationship between the dam-break flow,sand gravels,and concrete face slabs.Compared with the measured values,the relative errors of the peak discharge,final breach average width,dam breaching duration,and maximum failure length of the face slab calculated using the proposed model were all less than 12%,thus verifying the rationality of the model.The proposed model was demonstrated to perform better and provide more detailed results than three selected parametric models and three simplified mathematical models.The study results can aid in establishing the risk level and devising early warning strategies for CFSGDs.

Stability analysis of a concrete gravity dam and its foundation

The stability of dams and their foundations is an important problem to which dam engineers have paid close attention over the years. This paper presented two methods to analyze the stability of a gravity dam and its foundation. The direct analysis method was based on a rigid limit equilibrium method which regarded both dam and the rock foundation as undeformable rigid bodies. In this method, the safety factor of potential sliding surfaces was computed directly. The second method, the indirect analysis method, was based on elasto-plastic theory and employs nonlinear finite element method (FEM) in the analysis of stresses and deformation in the dam and its foundation. The determination of the safety degree of the structure was based on the convergence and abrupt the change criterion. The results obtained showed that structures' constituent material behavior played an active role in the failure of engineered structures in addition to the imposed load.

Earthquake safety assessment of concrete arch and gravity dams

Based on research studies currently being carried out at Dalian University of Technology, some important aspects for the earthquake safety assessmcnt of concrete dams are reviewed and discussed. First, the rate-dependent behavior of concrcte subjected to earthquake loading is examined, emphasizing the properties of concrete under cyclic and biaxial loading conditions. Second, a modified four-parameter Hsieh-Ting-Chen viscoplastic consistency model is developed to simulate the rate-dependent behavior of concrete. The earthquake response of a 278m high arch dam is analyzed, and the results show that the strain-rate effects become noticeable in the inelastic range, Third, a more accurate non-smooth Newton algorithm for the solution of three-dimensional frictional contact problems is developed to study the joint opening effects of arch dams during strong earthquakes. Such effects on two nearly 300m high arch dams have been studied. It was found that the canyon shape has great influence on the magnitude and distribution of the joint opening along the dam axis. Fourth, the scaled boundary finite element method presented by Song and Wolf is employed to study the dam-reservoir-foundation interaction effects of concrete dams. Particular emphases were placed on the variation of foundation stiffness and the anisotropic behavior of the foundation material on the dynamic response of concrete dams. Finally, nonlinear modeling of concrete to study the damage evolution of concrete dams during strong earthquakes is discussed. An elastic-damage mechanics approach for damage prediction of concrete gravity dams is described as an example. These findings are helpful in understanding the dynamic behavior of concrete dams and promoting the improvement of seismic safety assessment methods.

Numerical simulation of seismic damage and cracking of concrete slabs of high concrete face rockfill dams

Based on the damage constitutive model for concrete, the Weibull distribution function was used to characterize the random distribution of the mechanical properties of materials by finely subdividing concrete slab elements, and a concrete random mesoscopic damage model was established. The seismic response of a 100-m high concrete face rockfill dam(CFRD), subjected to ground motion with different intensities, was simulated with the three-dimensional finite element method(FEM), with emphasis on exploration of damage and the cracking process of concrete slabs during earthquakes as well as analysis of dynamic damage and cracking characteristics during strong earthquakes. The calculated results show that the number of damaged and cracking elements on concrete slabs grows with the duration of earthquakes. With increasing earthquake intensity, the damaged zone and cracking zone on concrete slabs grow wider. During a 7.0-magnitude earthquake, the stress level of concrete slabs is low for the CFRD, and there is almost no damage or slight damage to the slabs. While during a 9.0-magnitude strong earthquake, the percentages of damaged elements and macrocracking elements continuously ascend with the duration of the earthquake, peaking at approximately 26% and 5% at the end of the earthquake, respectively. The concrete random mesoscopic damage model can depict the entire process of sprouting, growing, connecting, and expanding of cracks on a concrete slab during earthquakes.

Seismic responses of high concrete face rockfill dams:A case study

Seismic responses of the Zipingpu concrete face rockfill dam were analyzed using the finite element method. The dynamic behavior of rockfill materials was modeled with a viscoelastic model and an empirical permanent strain model. The relevant parameters were obtained either by back analysis using the field observations or by reference to parameters of similar rockfill materials. The acceleration responses of the dam,the distribution of earthquake-induced settlement, and the gap propagation under the concrete slabs caused by the settlement of the dam were analyzed and compared with site investigations or relevant studies. The mechanism of failure of horizontal construction joints was also analyzed based on numerical results and site observations. Numerical results show that the input accelerations were considerably amplified near the top of the dam, and the strong shaking resulted in considerable settlement of the rockfill materials, with a maximum value exceeding 90 cm at the crest.As a result of the settlement of rockfill materials, the third-stage concrete slabs were separated from the cushion layer. The rotation of the cantilever slabs about the contacting regions, under the combined action of gravity and seismic inertial forces, led to the failure of the construction joints and tensile cracks appeared above the construction joints. The effectiveness and limitations of the so-called equivalent linear method are also discussed.

Study of damage to a high concrete dam subjected to underwater shock waves

To study the effect of a strong underwater shock wave on a concrete dam, this research aims to improve hammer impact methods in model tests. Six 1:200 scale models were designed and tested under distributed impact loads. A device was deployed for a direct measurement of the impact force at the upstream face of the dams. The model dam bases were anchored to prevent displacement. The experimental results indicate that the top part of the concrete dam is a weak zone, and the impact failure initiates with a fracture on the top of the dam. The peak value of impact stress increases when the second crack appears in the concrete dam from the upstream face to the downstream face. And, the level of the second crack in the dam body is lower as the peak value of impact stress increases. In this study, dynamic analysis was conducted by calculating the results to verify the effectiveness of a device to directly measure the impact force. This method may be used to approximately forecast the damage of concrete dam and may also be useful in other engineering applications.

STUDY ON COUPLING MODEL OF (SEEPAGE-FIELD) AND STRESS-FIELD FOR ROLLED CONTROL CONCRETE DAM

Based on the construction interfaces in rolled control concrete dam(RCCD), the methods were proposed to calculate the influence thickness of construction interfaces and the corresponding physical mechanics parameters. The principle on establishing the coupling model of seepage_field and stress_field for RCCD was presented. A 3_D Finite Element Method(FEM) program was developed. Study shows that such parameters as the thickness of construction interfaces,the elastic ratio and the (Poisson's) ratio obtained by tests and theoretical analysis are more reasonable, the coupling model of seepage_field and stress_field for RCCD may indicate the coupling effect between the two fields scientifically, and the developed 3_D FEM program can reflect the effect of the construction interfaces more adequately. According to the study, many scientific opinions are given both to analyze the influence of the construction interfaces to the (dam's) characteristic, and to reveal the interaction between the stress_field and the seepage_field.

An intelligent singular value diagnostic method for concrete dam deformation monitoring

Extracting implicit anomaly information through deformation monitoring data mining is highly significant to determining dam safety status.As an intelligent singular value diagnostic method for concrete dam deformation monitoring, shallow neural network models result in local optima and overfitting, and require manual feature extraction.To obtain an intelligent singular value diagnosis model that can be used for dam safety monitoring, a convolutional neural network (CNN) model that has advantages of deep learning (DL), such as automatic feature extraction, good model fitting, and strong generalizability, was trained in this study.An engineering example shows that the predicted result of the intelligent singular value diagnostic method based on CNN is highly compatible with the confusion matrix, with a precision of 92.41%, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) coordinates of (0.03, 0.97), an area-under-curve (AUC) value of 0.99, and an F1-score of 0.91.Moreover, the performance of the CNN model is better than those of models based on decision tree (DT) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) methods.Therefore, the intelligent singular value diagnostic method based on CNN is simple to operate, highly intelligent, and highly reliable, and it has a high potential for application in engineering.

Effects of spatial variation in cohesion over the concrete-rock interface on dam sliding stability

The limit equilibrium method （LEM） is widely used for sliding stability evaluation of concrete gravitydams. Failure is then commonly assumed to occur along the entire sliding surface simultaneously.However, the brittle behaviour of bonded concrete-rock contacts, in combination with the varying stressover the interface, implies that the failure of bonded dam-foundation interfaces occurs progressively. Inaddition, the spatial variation in cohesion may introduce weak spots where failure can be initiated.Nonetheless, the combined effect of brittle failure and spatial variation in cohesion on the overall shearstrength of the interface has not been studied previously. In this paper, numerical analyses are used toinvestigate the effect of brittle failure in combination with spatial variation in cohesion that is taken intoaccount by random fields with different correlation lengths. The study concludes that a possible existenceof weak spots along the interface has to be considered since it significantly reduces the overallshear strength of the interface, and implications for doing so are discussed.

Damage assessment for seismic response of recycled concrete filled steel tube columns

A model for evaluating structural damage of recycled aggregate concrete filled steel tube （RCFST） columns under seismic effects is proposed in this paper. The proposed model takes the lateral deformation and the effect of repeated cyclic loading into account. Available test results were collected and utilized to calibrate the parameters of the proposed model. A seismic test for six RCFST columns was also performed to validate the proposed damage assessment model. The main test parameters were the recycled coarse aggregate （RCA） replacement percentage and the bond-slip property. The test results indicated that the seismic performance of the RCFST member depends on the RCA contents and their damage index increases as the RCA replacement percentage increases. It is also indicated that the damage degree of RCFST changes with the variation of the RCA replacement percentage. Finally, comparisons between the RCA contents, lateral deformation ratio and damage degree were implemented. It is suggested that an improvement procedure should be implemented in order to compensate for the performance difference between the RCFST and normal concrete filled steel tubes （CFST）.

Seepage and stress analysis of anti-seepage structures constructed with different concrete materials in an RCC gravity dam

This study used the finite element method （FEM） to analyze the stress field and seepage field of a roller-compacted concrete （RCC） dam, with an upstream impervious layer constructed with different types of concrete materials, including three-graded RCC, two-graded RCC, conven- tional vibrated concrete （CVC）, and grout-enriched vibrated RCC （GEVR）, corresponding to the design schemes S 1 through $4. It also evaluated the anti-seepage performance of the imperious layer in the four design schemes under the normal water level and flood-check level. Stress field analysis of a retaining section and discharge section shows that the maximum tensile stress occurs near the dam heel, the maximum compressive stress occurs near the dam toe, and the stress distributions in the four schemes can satisfy the stress control criteria. Seepage field analysis shows that the uplift pressure heads in schemes S3 and S4 descend rapidly in the anti-seepage region, and that the calculated results of daily seepage flow under the steady seepage condition in these two schemes are about 30%-50% lower than those in the other two schemes, demonstrating that CVC and GEVR show better anti-seepage performance. The results provide essential parameters such as the uplift pressure head and seelga^e flow for physical model tests and anti-seepage structure selection in RCC dams.

Seismic safety of high concrete dams

China is a country of high seismicity with many hydropower resources. Recently,a series of high arch dams have either been completed or are being constructed in seismic regions,of which most are concrete dams. The evaluation of seismic safety often becomes a critical problem in dam design. In this paper,a brief introduction to major progress in the research on seismic aspects of large concrete dams,conducted mainly at the Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research(IWHR) during the past 60 years,is presented. The dam site-specific ground motion input,improved response analysis,dynamic model test verification,field experiment investigations,dynamic behavior of dam concrete,and seismic monitoring and observation are described. Methods to prevent collapse of high concrete dams under maximum credible earthquakes are discussed.

Incremental dynamic analysis of concrete gravity dams including base and lift joints

The growth in computer processing power has made it possible to use time-consuming analysis methods such as incremental dynamic analysis（IDA） with higher accuracy in less time.In an IDA study,a series of earthquake records are applied to a structure at successively increasing intensity levels,which causes the structure to shift from the elastic state into the inelastic state and finally into collapse.In this way,the limit-states and capacity of a structure can be determined.In the present research,the IDA of a concrete gravity dam considering a nonlinear concrete behavior,and sliding planes within the dam body and at the dam-foundation interface,is performed.The influence of the friction angle and lift joint slope on the response parameters are investigated and the various limit-states of the dam are recognized.It is observed that by introducing a lift joint,the tensile damage can be avoided for the dam structure.The lift joint sliding is essentially independent of the base joint friction angle and the upper ligament over the inclined lift joint slides into the upstream direction in strong earthquakes.

Seismic response of concrete gravity dam reinforced with FRP sheets on dam surface

This paper aims at exploring the effects of anti-seismic reinforcement with the fiber-reinforced polymer （FRP） material bonded to the dam surface in dam engineering. Time-history analysis was performed to simulate the seismic failure process of a gravity dam that was assumed to be reinforced at the locations of slope discontinuity at the downstream surface, part of the upstream face, and the dam heel. A damage model considering the influence of concrete heterogeneity was used to model the nonlinearity of concrete. A bond-slip model was applied to the interface between FRP and concrete, and the reinforcement mechanism was analyzed through the bond stress and the stress in FRP. The results of the crack pattern, displacement, and acceleration of the reinforced dam were compared with those of the original one. It is shown that FRP, as a reinforcement material, postpones the occurrence of cracks and slows the crack propagation, and that cracks emanating from the upstream surface and downstream surface are not connected, meaning that the reinforced dam can retain water-impounding function when subjected to the earthquake. Anti-seismic reinforcement with FRP is therefore beneficial to improving the seismic resistant capability of concrete dams.