The influence of concrete degradation on seismic performance of gravity dams

This paper presents a dam-reservoir interaction model that includes, water compressibility, sloshing of surface water, and radiation damping at the far-end reservoir, to investigate the influence of concrete deterioration on seismic behavior along with seismic performance of gravity dams. Investigations on seismic performance of the dam body have been conducted using the linear time-history responses obtained under six real and 0.3 g normalized earthquake records with time durations from 10 sec to 80 sec. The deterioration of concrete is assumed to develop due to mechanical and chemical actions over the dam life span. Several computer programs have been developed in FORTRAN 90 and MATLAB programming languages to analyze the coupled problem considering two-dimensional (2D) plane-strain condition. According to the results obtained from this study, the dam structure shows critical responses at the later ages (75 years) that could cause disastrous consequences; the critical effects of some earthquake loads such as Chi-Chi with 36.5% damage and Loma with 56.2% damage at the later ages of the selected dam body cannot be negligible; and therefore, the deterioration of concrete along with its effects on the dam response should be considered in analysis and design.