Seismic fragility analysis of a cemented Sand-gravel dam considering two failure modes

Abstract

Dams are vital infrastructures that are expected to maintain their stability during seismic excitations. Accordingly, cemented material dams are an emerging type, which are being increasingly used around the world owing to benefiting from advantages of both earth-fill and concrete gravity dams, which should be designed safely when subjected to strong ground motion. In the present paper, the seismic performance of a cemented sand and gravel (CSG) dam is assessed using incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method by accounting for two failure modes of tension cracking and base joint sliding considering the dam-reservoir-foundation interactions. To take the seismic uncertainties into account, the dam is analyzed under a suite of ground motion records and then, the effect of friction angle for base sliding as well as deformability of the foundation are investigated on the response of dam. To carry out the analyses, the Cindere dam in Turkey is selected as a case study, and various limit states corresponding to seismic performance levels of the dam are determined aiming to estimate the seismic fragilities. Based on the results, sliding of the Cindere dam could be serious under the maximum credible earthquake (MCE). Besides, dam faces are mostly to be cracked under such level of intensity. Moreover, the results indicate that as friction angle increases, probability of sliding between dam and foundation is reduced whereas, increases tensile cracking. Lastly, it is observed that foundation stiffening increases the probability of dam sliding but, reduces the tensile damage in the dam body.