Title: Gravity dam response under earthquake acceleration

Authors: P.N. Biju; Glory Joseph

Addresses: School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin-22, Kerala, India ' School of Engineering, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin-22, Kerala, India

Abstract: The behaviours of dams under hydrodynamic forces are very complex. The huge capital outlay required for the dam construction coupled with the devastating effect it can on life and property in case of failure, is a cause of great concern. Thus it is essential to ensure the safety of dams in the design, pre construction and post constructional stages. Also seismic loading has much importance since it is a combined effect of the interaction among dam, reservoir and foundation. In this paper Koyna dam is taken as a case study, subjected to real time earthquake acceleration having maximum 0.5 g and finding out the type of failure the dam likely to suffer. An attempt is made to examine the critical stresses occurred in Koyna dam due to the earthquake by considering three different models.

Keywords: gravity dams; dam-foundation-reservoir interaction; finite element method; FEM; ANSYS software; Koyna earthquake; modes; critical stresses; earthquakes; hydrodynamic forces; dam safety; seismic loading; dam failure; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTRUCTE.2016.076693

International Journal of Structural Engineering, 2016 Vol.7 No.2, pp.160 - 168

Received: 22 Jun 2015
Accepted: 30 Jul 2015
Published online: 22 May 2016 *

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