Abstract
Roller compacted concrete (RCC) dam safety evaluation requires a realistic definition of thermal condition during construction and operation. Seasonal variations of temperature induce significant tensile stress. Therefore, the required preparations should be made to control and limit the thermal stresses. In this study, the effect of thermal and mechanical parameters on RCC dam behavior is evaluated using a probabilistic model. ANSYS Workbench software based on the finite element method has been utilized. The Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) method was used for probabilistic and sensitivity analysis, in which the density of concrete, Young's modulus, Poisson ratio, thermal conductivity, and specific heat have been selected as input variables. Dam body temperature, total deformation, and maximum principal stress in the body were considered as output variables. To evaluate the structural performance of the case model of the RCC dam under thermal loading, the model sensitivity to selected input variables is investigated. Considering to obtained curves, it can be concluded that the mechanical and thermal parameters have different effects on the performance of the RCC dam under variation of body temperature. Also, the results show that the sensitivity curves of output parameters are linear or bilinear relative to input variables.
Highlights
Concrete is a material with low tensile strength. e changes in the concrete volume are caused by temperature variations, and it exhibits tensile stresses and cracking in critical points.erefore, studying the behavior of the dam against thermal changes is of special importance.e high temperature induced in cement hydration and the effect of environmental factors and structural volume changes produces tensile stresses in concrete in large structures
Temperature variations of concrete during the construction and operation of Roller compacted concrete (RCC) dams are significant in the study of thermal stress because of tensile stress and cracks. e most essential factor in the development of tensile stress and cracks in dams is the constraint that resists against the reduction of concrete volume due to contraction
Khanzaei et al [16] studied the changes in thermal stresses and crack fields of the Kinta RCC dam at the end of the construction and its service life, considering water temperature variation at different levels of the reservoir. e finite element model has been used for modeling and analysis
Summary
Concrete is a material with low tensile strength. e changes in the concrete volume are caused by temperature variations, and it exhibits tensile stresses and cracking in critical points. Khanzaei et al [16] studied the changes in thermal stresses and crack fields of the Kinta RCC dam at the end of the construction and its service life, considering water temperature variation at different levels of the reservoir. Ezzeldin Yazeed et al [17] studied the thermal-stress response of Muzdalifa dam considering the stages of construction to investigate the effect of changing the time intervals in concrete placing schedule on the thermal behavior of the dam. The probabilistic method is used to evaluate the effect of change of some parameters such as Young’s modulus, thermal conductivity, and specific heat on the response of an RCC dam model. Considering to results and sensitivity curves, it is possible to evaluate the thermal behavior of the model and select the optimum values of parameters to reduce the tensile stresses in the dam body
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