Procedure for time-domain seismic analyses of concrete dams

A procedure for time-domain seismic analyses of concrete dams is presented. This procedure employs substructure technique, the finite-element method, and a general transmitting boundary proposed by the writers. This transmitting boundary yields accurate hydrodynamic pressures acting on the dams, with low computational cost. The procedure can be adopted for both linear and nonlinear time-domain analyses of dam-reservoir systems. Modal analysis can be incorporated in the linear analysis to further reduce the computational effort. Several numerical examples under various ground motion inputs are also presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed procedure.