ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Probabilistic Safety Evaluation of a Concrete arch dam Based on Finite Element Modeling and A Reliability L-R Approach
 
More details
Hide details
1
Department of Civil Engineering, Ramsar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ramsar, Iran
 
2
Faculty of Civil and Surveying Engineering, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, Iran
 
 
Online publication date: 2019-12-26
 
 
Publication date: 2019-12-01
 
 
Civil and Environmental Engineering Reports 2019;29(4):62-78
 
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The safety assessment of the Pacoima arch dam is investigated in this paper. A Load – Resistance (L-R) method was used to ensure that the dam is safe or if it is at risk of failure. The “probabilistic design system” ANSYS finite element software was used to calculate the probability of failure. The Monte Carlo (MC) method with 50,000 iterations utilized for simulation and the Latin Hypercube method were used for Sampling. Input random variables with normal distribution and coefficient of variation of 15% due to uncertainties were considered and the six random variables used are the concrete modulus of elasticity, Poisson’s ratio of concrete, concrete mass, up-stream normal water level of the reservoir, and the allowable tensile and compressive strength of the concrete. Linear elastic behavior was assumed for the constitutive law of concrete material and if the stress exceeds the allowable stress of the concrete this is considered as a failure limit state. The maximum and minimum principal stresses were considered as the output parameter. Dam body safety was investigated only under self-weight and upstream hydrostatic pressure at the normal water level. The probability of failure of the dam body system was determined as βsystem=3.98, the safety index as pfsystem =3.42×10−15 and the dam is at risk of failure. The first and third principal stresses in the dam body were also S1max=2.03MPa and S3min=4.6MPa, respectively for the worst case of MC simulation.
REFERENCES (27)
1.
Lembagheri, M and Seyedkazemi, M 2015. Seismic performance sensitivity and uncertainty analysis of gravity dams. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 44(1), 41-58.
 
2.
Altarejos-García, L, Escuder-Bueno, I, Serrano-Lombillo, A and de Membrillera-Ortuño. MG (2012). Methodology for estimating the probability of failure by sliding in concrete gravity dams in the context of risk analysis. Structural safety, 36, 1-13.
 
3.
Ang, AHS and Tang, WH 1990. Probability Concepts in Engineering Planning and Design: Volume 2 – Decision, Risk and Reliability, John Wiley, N.Y., USA.
 
4.
Başbolat, EE, Bayraktar, A and Başağa, HB 11-13 October 2018. Seismic reliability analysis of high concrete arch dams under near-fault effect. 4th International Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology, Turkey.
 
5.
Beser, MRA 2005. Study on the reliability-Based safety analysis of concrete gravity dams. Doctoral dissertation, Thesis. Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences of Middle East Technical University.
 
6.
Chakkarapani, V 2004. Analysis of stress singularity of adhered contacts in MEMS. Doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University.
 
7.
Chen, H, Xu W, Wu, Q, Liu Z and Wang, S 2014. Reliability analysis of arch dam subjected to seismic loads. Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering, 39(11), 7609-7619.
 
8.
Chopra, AK and Wang, JT 2010. Earthquake response of arch dams to spatially varying ground motion. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 39(8), 887-906.
 
9.
Ganji, HT, Alembagheri, M and Khaneghahi, MH 2019. Evaluation of the seismic reliability of a gravity dam-reservoir in a homogeneous foundation coupled system. Frontiers of Structural and Civil Engineering, 13(3), 701-715.
 
10.
Hariri-Ardebili, MA 2017. Analytical failure probability model for generic gravity dam classes. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, 231(5), 546-557.
 
11.
Hariri-Ardebili, MA, Xu, J 2019. Efficient seismic reliability analysis of large-scale coupled systems including epistemic and aleatory uncertainties. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 116, 761-773.
 
12.
Hariri-Ardebili, MA 2018. Risk, Reliability, Resilience (R3) and beyond in dam engineering: A state-of-the-art review. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 31, 806-831.
 
13.
Hariri-Ardebili, MA and Pourkamali-Anaraki, F 2018. Support vector machine-based reliability analysis of concrete dams. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 104, 276-295.
 
14.
Johansson, F, Westberg Wilde, M and Altarejos García, L 2017. Theme D-Risk Analysis–assessment of reliability for concrete dams. In 14th International Benchmark Workshop on Numerical Analysis of Dams, Stockholm.
 
15.
Khaneghahi, MH, Alembagheri, M and Soltani, N 2019. Reliability and variance-based sensitivity analysis of arch dams during construction and reservoir impoundment. Frontiers of Structural and Civil Engineering, 13(3), 526-541.
 
16.
Mihoubi, MK and Kerkar, ME 2016. Application Reliability Method for Concrete Dams. World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, International Journal of Civil, Environmental, Structural, Construction and Architectural Engineering, 10(12), 1563-1569.
 
17.
Pires, K, Beck, A, Bittencourt, T and Futai, M 2019. Reliability analysis of built concrete dam. Revista IBRACON de Estruturas e Materiais, 12(3), 551-579.
 
18.
Pouraminian, M and Ghaemian, M 2017. Multi-criteria optimization of concrete arch dams. Scientia Iranica. Transaction A, Civil Engineering, 24(4), 1810.
 
19.
Pouraminian, M and Pourbakhshian, S 2019. Multi-criteria shape optimization of open-spandrel concrete arch bridges: Pareto front development and decision-making. World Journal of Engineering, 16(5), 670-680.
 
20.
Pouraminian, M, Pourbakhshian, S and Hosseini, M. 2019. Reliability analysis of Pole Kheshti historical arch bridge under service loads using SFEM. Journal of Building Pathology and Rehabilitation, 4(1), 21.
 
21.
Pourbakhshian, S and Ghaemian, M 2015. Investigating stage construction in high concrete arch dams. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 8(14), 1.
 
22.
Pourbakhshian, S, Ghaemian, M and Joghataie, A 2016. Shape optimization of concrete arch dams considering stage construction. Scientia Iranica. Transaction A, Civil Engineering, 23(1), 21.
 
23.
Pourbakhshian, S and Ghaemain, M 2016. Shape optimization of arch dams using sensitivity analysis. KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 20(5), 1966-1976.
 
24.
Raphael, JM. Tensile strength of concrete. in ACI Journal Proceedings, pp. 158-165, ACI (March – April 1984).
 
25.
Reh, S, Beley, JD, Mukherjee, S and Khor, EH 2006. Probabilistic finite element analysis using ANSYS. Structural Safety, 28(1-2), pp.17-43.
 
26.
Saouma, V 2006. Reliability-based nonlinear fracture mechanics analysis of a concrete dam; a simplified approach. Water and Energy Abstracts, 16(1).
 
27.
Westberg, M 2010. Reliability-based assessment of concrete dam stability. Doctoral dissertation, Division of Structural Engineering, Lund University.
 
eISSN:2450-8594
ISSN:2080-5187
Journals System - logo
Scroll to top