Dynamic response of concrete gravity dams using different water modelling approaches: westergaard, lagrange and euler

Abstract

The dams are huge structures storing a large amount of water and failures of them cause especially irreparable loss of lives during the earthquakes. They are named as a group of structures subjected to fluid-structure interaction. So, the response of the fluid and its hydrodynamic pressures on the dam should be reflected more accurately in the structural analyses to determine the real behavior as soon as possible. Different mathematical and analytical modelling approaches can be used to calculate the water hydrodynamic pressure effect on the dam body. In this paper, it is aimed to determine the dynamic response of concrete gravity dams using different water modelling approaches such as Westergaard, Lagrange and Euler. For this purpose, Sariyar concrete gravity dam located on the Sakarya River, which is 120km to the northeast of Ankara, is selected as a case study. Firstly, the main principals and basic formulation of all approaches are given. After, the finite element models of the dam are constituted considering dam-reservoir-foundation interaction using ANSYS software. To determine the structural response of the dam, the linear transient analyses are performed using 1992 Erzincan earthquake ground motion record. In the analyses, element matrices are computed using the Gauss numerical integration technique. The Newmark method is used in the solution of the equation of motions. Rayleigh damping is considered. At the end of the analyses, dynamic characteristics, maximum displacements, maximum-minimum principal stresses and maximum-minimum principal strains are attained and compared with each other for Westergaard, Lagrange and Euler approaches.