Behaviors of Concrete faced slab on Concrete face rockfill dam during earthquake

Abstract

Thailand has experienced the moderate to strong earthquakes during the past decade. The occurrences of earthquake events in Thailand led to the wide attentions from both academic and engineering fields. This article investigates the seismic analysis of high concrete face rockfill dam (CFRD) through numerical simulations, mainly focusing on the concrete face slab component. The Nam Ngum 2 (NN2) dam, a large CFRD of 182 m height is used as the case study. The data sets of experimental tests are collected from the NN2 dam project. The three-dimensional (3D) finite element analysis was performed. The rockfill material characteristics are represented by Hardening soil model with small strain stiffness. The response of CFRDs under variation of seismic input is compared to discuss the necessity of conducting seismic analysis of high CFRDs. The induced stress distribution and deformation of concrete face slab is presented under static and dynamic conditions. The final goals of this research may provide the effective approach for the seismic design of CFRDs.