Deterministic Seismic Damage Analysis for Concrete Gravity Dams: A Case Study of Oued Fodda Dam

Abstract One of the major dangers for seismic damage of concrete dams is the propagation of cracks in dam concrete. The present study undertakes a numerical investigation of the seismic damage for Oued Fodda concrete gravity dam, located in the northwest of Algeria, considering the impacts of properties of joints along the dam-foundation rock interface and cross-stream earthquake excitation. Three-dimensional transient analyses for coupled dam-foundation rock system are carried out using Ansys software. The hydrodynamic effect of reservoir fluid is modelled using the added mass approach. The smeared crack approach is utilised to present the seismic damage of dam concrete using the Willam and Warnke failure criterion. The dam-foundation rock interface joints are presented with two ways, adhesive joints and frictional joints. The Drucker–Prager model is considered for dam concrete in nonlinear analyses. Consideration of the study results indicates that the frictional joints model can reduce the seismic response and damage hazard of the dam body to a better extent compared with the adhesive joints model. Furthermore, the application of cross-stream earthquake excitation reveals the significant effect on cracking response of the dam in the two models of joints.