Seismic fracture analysis of concrete arch dams incorporating the loading rate dependent size effect of concrete

The purpose of this study is to investigate the size effect, loading rate, and smeared crack models in the nonlinear seismic behavior of concrete arch dams. One of the important parameters in the design of arch concrete dams is the tensile strength of unreinforced mass concrete. Various fracture parameters obtained from experimental results reported for concrete in order to study the size-effect is used in this paper. In the present analysis, the smeared crack method is used in finite element analysis of the Morrow Point arch dam subjected to three components of the TAFT earthquake as a case study. The dependence of fracture, and especially of the size effect, on the loading rate is described. Models incorporating nonlinear analysis in three cases with and without the size effect of dam concrete and fluid-structure interaction are employed to evaluate and compare them. The water is taken as an inviscid, compressible fluid, and the foundation is rigid. From the study, it is concluded that the participation of the size effect leads to higher values of maximum displacements and stresses in benchmark points compared to the model that ignores the size effect. The crack initiation criterion based on the maximum tensile stress according to the size effect of concrete, and also the dynamic loading range should be defined. Results show considering fixed smeared crack models used in the concrete specimen as well as the size effect of concrete materials, will lead to the crack profile is more realistic and will represent near to real behavior of concrete fracture. The results are of significant interest for the concrete fracture of dams; hence the loading rate should be adopted for fracture properties obtained in dams.