Dynamic analysis of al-adhaim zoned earthdam

Abstract EN

Among external forces, the dam is subjected to earthquakes which are naturally or artificially occurring and resulting in time-varying deflections, excess pore water pressure and liquefaction at some zones in the dam.

In this paper, coupled dynamic analysis has been carried out on zoned earthdam subjected to earthquake excitation in which displacements and pore water pressures are calculated.

The finite element method is used and the computer program QUAKE / W is adopted for this task.

Al-Adhaim dam which is an earthdam located near the place of intersection of Tuz Jay and the river Al-Adhaim is used as a case study.

A parametric study was carried out to investigate the effect of the maximum earthquake horizontal acceleration on the general response of the dam.

It was found that as the maximum horizontal acceleration of the input motion increases, both horizontal and vertical displacement increase.

In all cases, the effect of the input ground acceleration diminishes at time (60 sec.) from the time of earthquake shock.

When the maximum horizontal acceleration of the input motion increases from (0.05g) to (0.2g), the horizontal acceleration predicted at a node located at the core base increases by about (200 %) while the maximum effective stress increases by about (32 %).