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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

EARTHQUAKE RISK REDUCTION AND SEISMIC

SAFETY EVALUATION OF ARCH DAMS USING INFINITE ELEMENTS
Ali Noorzad1, H. Mirzabozorg2, M. Ghaemian3
1

Corresponding Author, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Water Engineering, Water and Power University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, email: noorzad@pwut.ac.ir
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, KN-Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, email:
mirzabozorg@kntu.ac.ir
3
Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, email:
ghaemian@sharif.edu
ABSTARCT:
Uncertainty in seismic behavior of arch dams due to the effect of foundation and reservoir interaction is an
important issue in the seismic safety evaluation of existing dams. In the present paper, a direct time domain
procedure is used for dynamic analysis of the coupled system of reservoir-dam-foundation in 3D space. In the
present paper, it is attempted to simulate the foundation radiation effect on the system by infinite elements and
the reservoir water is assumed to be compressible. Material nonlinearity of the mass concrete is modeled by
smeared crack approach which is able to simulate the non-uniform cracking within the finite elements of the dam
body. Amir-kabir arch dam in Iran is chosen as a case study to investigate the nonlinear seismic behavior of the
coupled system. It is realized that the crack profiles within the dam body are less when the foundation is
assumed massed. It is found that the proposed numerical algorithm is useful in seismic safety evaluation of arch
dams in 3D space and the assumptions in the pertinent environments within the coupled problem are more
realistic. Due to the reduction of the seismic response of the coupled system, it is expected to reduce the seismic
risk of dams using more real assumptions in the numerical models.
KEYWORDS: Concrete arch dams, Dam-reservoir-foundation Interaction, Earthquake risk reduction, Infinite
elements, Non-linear behavior, Safety evaluation
1. INTRODUCTION
Design and seismic safety evaluation of concrete dams is major task in the engineering field due to the vast
socio-economic disasters which may be caused by collapse of these infrastructures. Several numerical models
have been developed for seismic design and safety evaluation of concrete dams in the two and three-dimensional
space. In the article presented by Mirzabozorg et al. (2007) some recent studies in the field of foundation
interaction effects are given. Amung them, Tan and Chopra (1995a and b) used the boundary element method to
compute the impedance matrix and they analyzed the dam-reservoir foundation in the frequency domain. Gaun
et al. (1994) presented the efficient numerical procedure in the time domain in which the dam is modeled using
the finite element method and the dynamic soil-structure interaction is included to compute the impedance
function of the half-space. Recently, Ghaemian et al. (2006) studied the effects of the foundation shape and mass
on the linear seismic response of arch dams using finite element method including structure-reservoir interaction.
In the present paper, an appropriate 3D infinite element is utilized to simulate the radiation damping on the farend boundary of the foundation medium. In addition, the smeared crack approach presented in Mirzabozorg et
al. (2007) is utilized to model the nonlinear behavior of the mass concrete. The staggered displacement method
is used to solve the coupled problem of the dam-reservoir-foundation system. The developed numerical
algorithm is utilized to simulate the nonlinear behavior of arch dams including the massed foundation, semi
infinite media at the far end boundary of the foundation and the compressible reservoir behind the dam body.

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

2. CONSTITUTIVE LAW FOR MASS CONCRETE

The numerical model used for the nonlinear seismic analysis of the mass concrete in the present study can be
found in Mirzabozorg et al. (2007). The utilized numerical approach is able to simulate the behavior of the
system during the following phases:
Pre-softening behavior
Fracture energy conservation
Non-linear behavior during the softening phase
Crack closing/reopening behavior.
It is worth noting that the proposed model falls into Co-axial Rotating Crack Model (CRCM) category.
3. FOUNDATION MEDIUM
One of the main aspects in the seismic loading and wave propagation within the semi-infinite media such as rock
media underlying structures is to prevent the wave reflection from the artificial boundary of the infinite media in
the finite element analysis. Using the infinite elements, the stiffness and the damping pertinent to the semiinfinite media via the artificial boundary of the structure are accounted for in the analyses. There will be two sets
of shape functions, the standard shape function, Ni, and a growth shape function, Mi. The growth shape function,
Mi, grows without any limitation as the coordinate of i-th node approaches infinity, and is applied to the
geometry. The standard shape functions Ni are applied to the field variables. A classic example is the line
element which is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Line element 1-2-3 of infinite element

The geometric properties within the element are interpolated as
x = M 1 x1 + M 2 x 2
M1 =

(3.1)

2
1+
,M 2 =
1
1

(3.2)

The formation of the property matrices (i.e. the stiffness matrix) proceeds in the standard method, except the
mapping function M 1 and M 2 are used to form the Jacobian matrix, [J]. According to Bettes (1992), the
growth shape functions, Mi, and their derivatives are presented in Table 1 for a 20-node solid element with a face
in the infinity as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Solid element with one face in infinity

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

Table 1 Growth shape functions and their derivatives for one face in the infinity

The effect of semi-infinite media at the far-end boundary of the foundation is taken into account when the
obtained stiffness matrices and their related proportional damping matrices are assembled into the global
stiffness matrix and the global damping matrix of the system.

4. FLUID- STRUCTURE INERACTION AND THE COUPLED PROBLEM

The governing equation in the reservoir media is Helmoltz equation from the Eulers equation.
2 p =

1 2 p
C 2 t 2

(4.3)

where p , C and t are the hydrodynamic pressure, pressure wave velocity in the liquid and time, respectively.
Boundary conditions required to apply on the reservoir media to solve Eqn. 4.3 are explained in Mirzabozorg et
al. (2003). In addition, a detailed definition of matrices and vectors used has been provided in Mirzabozorg et al.
(2003). The coupled equation of dam-reservoir is solved using the staggered displacement method.

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

5. FINITE ELEMENT IMPLEMENTATION AND NUMERICAL SOLUTION

The 20-node iso-parametric brick finite elements are implemented to model the structure, mathematically. The
requirement for integration and generation of the mass, stiffness and damping matrices for this type of element is
27 Gaussian points in 3*3*3 order within each element. It is worthy to note that in the smeared crack approach,
cracking process is applied on each Gaussian point within the considered element.
Based on the implemented algorithm, strains are computed and the cracking initiation criterion is checked in
each Gaussian points. Cracking in each Gaussian point is simply modeled by adjusting the modulus stiffness
matrix contribution of the considered point in the element stiffness matrix which is co-axial with the principal
strain directions.
The foundation in the near field is simulated utilizing 20-node solid elements and the infinite elements with one
face at the infinity are used to simulate the semi-infinite media via the far-end boundary of the foundation media.
Finally, the fluid domain is modeled using 8-node fluid elements in which the DOF at their nodes is the
hydrodynamic pressure. The coupled problem of the dam-reservoir-foundation system is solved using the
staggered displacement method where the nodal acceleration vector is estimated at the current time step to
compute the other components.
Amir-Kabir dam, located in Iran, has been selected as a case study to investigate the effects of the foundation
interaction on the seismic response of the structure. The dam is double curvature arch dam with the height of
168m and its crest length is 390m. The dam structure is modelled with 72 iso-parametric 20-node elements and
its foundation media surrounding the dam body is simulated using 980 elements in which the number of the
infinite elements at the far-end boundary of the foundation is 240. It should be noted that the depth of the
foundation media is about twice of the dam height in the three global directions.
The fluid is modelled using 1024 iso-parametric 8-node fluid elements and is extended about twice of the height
of the dam body in the upstream direction. Figure 3 illustrates the finite element model of the dam body and its
foundation.

Figure 3 Finite element model of the structure, the dam body and its surrounding foundation
The modulus of elasticity, Poissons ratio, the unit weight, the true tensile strength and the ratio of the apparent
to the true tensile strength, the specific fracture energy and the dynamic magnification factor applied on both the
tensile strength and the specific fracture energy are 26GPa, 0.17, 24.027kN/m3, 3.662MPa, 1.35, 150N/m and
1.20, respectively. For the foundation medium, the modulus of elasticity, Poissons ratio and the unit weight are
taken as 16.3GPa, 0.15 and 29.400kN/m3. The velocity of wave propagation and the unit weight of water in the
reservoir are assumed to be 1436m/s and 9.807kN/m3, respectively. The wave reflection coefficient of the
reservoir bottom and sides is given as 0.8, conservatively.

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

Acceleration {g}

The stiffness proportional damping is used in the analyses in which the damping ratio for the fundamental mode
is considered 10%. Applied loads on the system are the self weight, the hydrostatic pressure and the seismic
load. The values of the integration parameters in the -method are taken as =-0.2, =0.36 and =0.7. The quasilinear damping mechanism is used for the structure in the dynamic analysis in which the stiffness proportional
damping is updated during the element cracking within the dam body.
Figure 4 shows three components of the ground motion recorded at the Ab-bar station during Manjil-Iran
earthquake on 20 June 1990 which is chosen for the analyses. This record is normalized and filtered for the
Amir-Kabir dam site. The horizontal and vertical PGA at MCE level of excitation is 0.43g and 0.33g at the dam
site, respectively. It is required to mention that all the components are multiplied by 1.5 to cause crack profiles
within the dam body.
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
0

10

11

12

13

14

15

Time {Sec}

Acceleration {g}

(a) Horizontal, upstream-downstream direction

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
0

10

11

12

13

14

15

13

14

15

Tim e {Sec}

Acceleration {g}

(b) Horizontal, cross-stream direction

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
0

10

11

12

Tim e {Sec}

(c) Vertical direction

Figure 4 Components of the Manjil-Iran earthquake on June 20, 1990

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

At the first load step, there is not any cracked Gaussian point due to the self-weight and the hydrostatic load. At
the second load step, the system is excited simultaneously in the three directions using the components shown in
Figure 4. Figure 5 presents the crack profiles at the three layers of the Gaussian points through the thickness of
the dam body when the foundation medium is assumed to be massless. The results of using the massed
foundation and infinite elements to model the near field of the semi-infinite medium are given in Figure 6.

Figure 5 Cracked profile within the dam body; massless foundation

Figure 6 Cracked profile within the dam body; massed foundation using infinite elements
Comparing the crack profiles shown in Figures 5 and 6, using massed foundation and infinite elements leads to
less cracked Gaussian points which seems to be real. It is worth noting that in the model with massless
foundation, the fist crack occurred at 3.39s, while, the first crack in the second model (massed foundation
including infinite elements) initiates at 6.855s. In fact, because of larger response of the structure with massless
foundation, it is in good agreement with the actual behavior.
Figure 7 compares the time history of the crown crest displacement in the three directions. It can be observed
that the model with massed foundation and infinite elements gives a lower response in comparison with the other
model.

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

(a) Upstream/Downstream direction

(b) Cross-stream direction

(c) Vertical direction

Figure7 Crest displacement of the crown cantilever

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The 14 World Conference on Earthquake Engineering

October 12-17, 2008, Beijing, China

6. CONCLUSIONS
The effect of the semi infinite medium at the far-end boundary of the foundation and the radiation damping has
been simulated using infinite elements on the far-end boundary of the massed foundation medium. The smeared
crack approach is utilized to simulate the nonlinear behavior of the dam body and the reservoir medium has been
assumed to be compressible. The dam-reservoir-foundation system is analyzed using the staggered displacement
method. Amir-kabir double curvature arch dam in Iran is analyzed as a case study and based on the obtained
results the nonlinear response of the dam body is more severe when the foundation is assumed massless. In
addition, using massed foundation including the infinite elements at the truncated boundary leads to crack
initiation at the longer period of excitation and also to less crack profiles within the dam body. One of the main
aspects of the proposed numerical algorithm is the stability of the linear and nonlinear dynamic analyses during
the seismic excitation. Finally, based on the results of analyzing the case study, the proposed algorithm can be an
innovative method to overcome some uncertainties for design and safety evaluation of concrete dams.
REFERENCES

Gaun, F., Moore, I.D. and Lin, G. (1994). Seismic Analysis of Reservoir-Dam-Soil Systems in the
Time Domain. Computer Methods and Advances in Geo-mechanics, 917-922.
Ghaemian, M., Noorzad, A. and Moghaddam, R.M. (2006). Foundation Effect on Seismic Response of
Concrete Arch Dams Including Dam-Reservoir Interaction. European Earthquake Engineering
(EEE) 3, 49-57.
Mirzabozorg H., Khaloo A.R. and Ghaemian M. (2003). Staggered Solution Scheme for ThreeDimensional Analysis of Dam-Reservoir Interaction. Dam Engineering Journal XIV: 3, 1-33.
Mirzabozorg, H., Khaloo, A.R., Ghaemian, M. and Jalalzadeh, B. (2008). Non-Uniform Cracking in
Smeared Crack Approach for Seismic Analysis of Concrete Dams in 3D Space. Paper will be
published in European Earthquake Engineering (EEE).
Tan, H. and Chopra, A.K. (1995). Earthquake Analysis of Arch Dams Including Dam-ReservoirFoundation Rock Interaction. Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics 24, 1453-1474.
Tan, H. and Chopra, A.K. (1995). Dam-Foundation Rock Interaction Effects in Frequency-Response
Functions of Arch Dams. Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics 24, 1475-1489.
Bettess, P. (1992). Infinite Elements. Penshaw Press, 1st edition.