Long-term influence of concrete degradation on dam-foundation interaction

Abstract

The dam-foundation interaction behavior under the application of seismic load has been investigated in the present paper using finite element technique in the time domain. Since the dam face is in constant contact with water, concrete degradation due to hygromechanical loading is inevitable and should be considered in the analysis procedure. This ageing process of concrete leads to loss of stiffness and strength of the material. Therefore, to assess the behavior of the dam at a later stage of its life, it is important to determine the proper strength of the concrete at a certain age. An approach to include the time-dependent degradation of concrete owing to environmental factors and mechanical loading in terms of isotropic degradation index is presented. An iterative scheme has been developed to model the dam-foundation interaction effects of the coupled system. The strains and the displacements are observed to increase if the ageing procedure of the gravity dam is taken into account. The long-term behavior of the aged concrete gravity and foundation interaction has been observed by using a developed ageing model for concrete. © 2011 World Scientific Publishing Company.