EFFECT OF CONTRACTION JOINTS ON THE STRUCTURAL PERFORMANCE OF ARCH DAM

Abstract

The tools and techniques in contemporary engineering modeling vision tend to change or update the physical and geometrical appearance of structural components attempts to increase the efficiency of sections. Several studies concerning the stability conditions of the dam components were conducted to examine the structural behavior. such as dam performance evaluation after construction especially research’s regarding the stability of aging dams, regardless of any studies of the physical form of the dam components. The dam requires three stages in construction. Firstly, is the investigations stage, followed by the design of dam layouts and finally the construction stage. This research concentrates on the second stage which is the design of dam layouts. NonLinear analysis was performed under the requirements of the finite element’s method on seven models of an arch dam to explore the structural behavior of the concrete cantilever blocks under the effects of different types of loading. Including investigation on the behavior of a dam concerning multiple intervals of contraction joints. Contraction joints were modeled with seven intervals of distances which are 15m,17.5m, 20m, 22.5m, 25m, 27.5m, and 30 meters respectively. Stresses and displacements response of the body dam structure considered as a structural stability indicator for the tension and compression stresses limitation. Nonlinearity measurement in both materials and configurations of the shape of the dam is used to evaluate a maximum and minimum principal stress along the crown cantilever in both of (upstream, downstream) faces. Also, comparisons include the magnitude of displacement along the crest in both faces. The tools for building an information modeling revit package used for the three-dimensional simulation of a dam. Later the seven models linked to finite element tools Abaqus 6.13 package for discretization’s and analysis. The results show that the appropriate selection of contraction joints length increased the structural stability condition of the double curvature dam and reduced the risk of failure, especially near the abutments.