SLIDING RESPONSE OF GRAVITY DAMS INCLUDING VERTICAL SEISMIC ACCELERATIONS

Seismic safety assessment of gravity dams is a major concern in many regions of the world while the effects of vertical seismic accelerations on the response of structures remain poorly understood. This paper first investigates the effect of including vertical accelerations in the sliding response analysis of gravity dams subjected to a range of historical ground motion records separated in 2 groups according to their source-to-site distance. Analyses showed that the incidence of vertical accelerations on the sliding response of gravity dams is significantly higher for near-source records than for far-source records. The pseudo-static 30% load combination rule, commonly used in practice to account for the non-simultaneous occurrence of the peak horizontal and vertical accelerations, yielded good approximations of the minimum safety factors against sliding computed from time-history analyses. A method for empirically estimating the vertical response spectra based on horizontal spectra, accounting for the difference in frequency content and amplitudes between the 2 components is investigated. Results from analyses using spectrum compatible horizontal and vertical synthetic records also approximated well the sliding response of a gravity dam subjected to series of simultaneous horizontal and vertical historical earthquake records.

• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/16713664
• Corporate Authors:

  Science Press

  Beijing 100707,   China 
• Authors:
  • Christopoulos, C
  • Leger, P
  • Filiatrault, A
• Publication Date: 2003-12

Language

• English

Media Info

• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: p. 189-200
• Serial:
  • Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Vibration
  • Volume: 2
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Springer
  • ISSN: 1671-3664
  • EISSN: 1993-503X
  • Serial URL: http://link.springer.com/journal/11803

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bridge foundations; Earthquake engineering; Earthquake resistant structures; Gravity dams; Seismicity; Settlement (Structures); Structural deterioration and defects; Vibration control
• Subject Areas: Bridges and other structures; Design; Highways; I24: Design of Bridges and Retaining Walls;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00975273
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 18 2004 12:00AM