Numerical Modeling of Water Pressure in Propagating Concrete Cracks

Modeling of water flow in the propagating cracks plays an important role in the stability analysis of concrete dams. The water pressure within concrete cracks is a function of water permeability of the crack. In this paper, a partially saturated finite-element algorithm is used for numerical modeling of water pressure within a propagating cohesive crack. In order to calculate fracture opening along the crack path suitably, a trilinear cohesive law is considered to describe mechanical behavior of the fracture process zone. The zero-thickness cohesive interface elements are used to capture the mixed-mode fracture behavior in tension and compression. On the basis of the experimental data, it is shown that a unified formula for natural fractures permeability can suitably describe the permeability of a propagating crack in both cases of slow and fast loading rates.