Study on the Seismic Response of an Asphalt Concrete Core Dam-Overburden System Considering the Spatial Variability of Material Parameters

The spatial variability of overburden and dam material parameters significantly affects the seismic responses of asphalt-concrete core dams. In this paper, a spatial random field simulation method based on the number theory selection points method is proposed. The advantage of the proposed method is realizing the optimization of random point sets. The calculation amount can decrease significantly compared with that of the traditional Monte Carlo random assign points method. A random field model is constructed, and "nonintrusive" stochastic finite element calculations of an asphalt-concrete core rockfill dam are carried out. The influence of the static and dynamic constitutive model random parameters on the seismic response of the dam and asphalt core are studied. The conclusions show that the number theory selection points method can be used to optimize the distribution of random point sets and improve the computational efficiency significantly. Ignoring the spatial variability of overburden and rockfill material parameters can lead to an underestimation of the seismic response by 40 similar to 90% probability under different working conditions.