Seismic damage investigation of arch dams under different water levels based on massively parallel computation

Abstract

Parallelization based on the overlapping domain decomposition method (ODDM) is adopted to increase the computation speed of large-scale nonlinear dynamic analysis. A comprehensive system of arch dam-reservoir-foundation is established considering the foundation radiation damping and the nonlinearity of joint opening and concrete damage. A planned 240 m-high arch dam including approximately 3.5 million degrees of freedom and 34 contraction joints is selected as a case study. In particular, to the best of the authors' knowledge, such large-scale seismic damage analysis of an arch dam-reservoir-foundation is unique and can help in understanding damage to an arch dam under an earthquake. The influence of water level on the seismic safety of the arch dam is evaluated based on the damage. New findings are revealed through sophisticated simulation. Under strong earthquake, although free blocks form under low water level conditions, there seems to be no risk of a catastrophic release of the reservoir.