Dam-zoning modulus reconstruction using adjoint method

Abstract

Mechanical properties of ageing dams and rock foundations can differ significantly from those design values used during construction. It is necessary to conduct the inverse analysis of mechanical parameters of dam and rock foundation. However, it is inconsistent with the actual situation by utilising the conventional inversion method for structural analysis, as the conventional method can only inverse the integrated elastic modulus. Therefore, a new inversion method is proposed in this paper, which utilises adjustment coefficient to inverse initial elastic modulus, and introduces the adjoint method combined with DFP quasi Newton method in order to inverse zoning elastic modulus of dam and rock foundation. The adjoint method calculates the gradients in a much more efficient way, as it can avoid the repeated computation of large stiffness matrix. Therefore, the time consumption is reduced greatly and the computational efficiency increases significantly. Combined with project case, the feasibility and validity of the proposed method are verified.