Behavior of embankment dams in earthquake conditions and numerical analysis

Abstract

Within this thesis various numerical methods for prediction of an embankment dam's dynamic behavior were compared by back-calculation of three case studies that suffered severe earthquake shaking. These three case studies namely are: - The Aratozawa dam, a 85m high Clay Core Rockfill dam that was shaken by the Mw=6,9 Iwate 7 Miyagi earthquake resulting in an measured peak ground acceleration of 0,85g. - The Zigingpu dam, a 156m high Concrete Face Rockfill dam shaken by the Mw=7,9 Wenchuan earthquake resulting in severe damage to the concrete slabs. - The Fujinuma dam, a 18m high earthfill dam that was shaken by the Mw=9,0 Tohoku earthquake resulting in crest overflow and dam breach. State of the art numerical methods as recommended by ICOLD Bulletin 155 were com-pared to newly developed models. State of the art numerical models as defined by ICOLD Bulletin 155 are the well-known Equivalent - Linear analysis accompanied by 2nd step Newmark or Makdisi- Seed deformation type analysis. 'Newly' developed models in this case are Nonlinear dynamic analysis. The analyses were performed by use of Software GeoStudio 2012 and Plaxis 2015.