Abstract
The stability and safety are very important issues for the dam structure which are built in seismic regions. The dam body consists of soil materials that behave nonlinearly modelled with finite elements. The numerical investigation employs a fully nonlinear finite element analysis considering linear and elastic-plastic constitutive model to describe the material properties of the soil. In this paper, seismic analysis of an earthen dam is carried out using Geo-Studio software based on finite element method. Initially, the in-situ stress state analysis has been done before the earthquake established, and then its results are used in the seismic analysis as a parent analysis. A complete parametric study is carried out to identify the effects of input motion characteristics, soil behaviour and strength of the shell and core materials on the dynamic response of earthen dams. The real earthquake record is used as input motions. The analysis gives the overall pattern of the dam behaviour in terms of contours of displacements and stresses.
Highlights
Earthen dams are very important structure and provide renewable energy and agriculture facility to the country
To observe effects of nonlinearity of soil, linear and nonlinear soil models are used in the analysis using software GeoStudio (2012) [11] and results are obtained in terms of contour of stresses and displacements to observe the performance of the earthen dam in case of earthquake loads
The maximum horizontal stresses for linear soil model is 753.69 kPa and for nonlinear soil model it is 808.94 kPa which shows, as the nonlinearity increases stresses increases while minimum vertical stresses for these cases are found to be in the toe of dam which are −14.355 kPa and −8.3208 kPa respectively shows that effect of tensioning decreases with nonlinearity of the soil
Summary
Earthen dams are very important structure and provide renewable energy and agriculture facility to the country. Performance evaluation and the stability of earth dams during earthquakes require a dynamic response analysis to determine acceleration, dynamic stresses and deformations induced in the dam by the seismic forces. Dynamic response of earth dams (located in valleys or narrow canyons) undergoing high-magnitude earthquakes is generally determined by independently calculating the dynamic response of the various sections of the dam performing a finite element analysis. To observe effects of nonlinearity of soil, linear and nonlinear soil models are used in the analysis using software GeoStudio (2012) [11] and results are obtained in terms of contour of stresses and displacements to observe the performance of the earthen dam in case of earthquake loads
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