Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Permanent deformation on preexisting sliding surfaces in dams

Journal Article · · Journal of Geotechnical Engineering; (United States)
 [1];  [2]
  1. National Technical Univ., Athens (Greece) State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States)
  2. State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY (United States)

A finite-element model capable of computing permanent deformations along preexisting sliding surfaces in dams and embankments is used to evaluate the error in the current state-of-practice two-step procedures that are based on the simplifying assumption that the computation of dynamic response and of the resulting sliding displacements can be decoupled. Both sinusoidal and real earthquake ground motions are used as excitation, and Coulomb's friction law governs sliding along any point of the rigid-plastic tensionless interface. It is found that only when the dominant excitation frequencies lie in the proximity of the fundamental dam frequency will the permanent deformation from the decoupling assumption exceed appreciably the single-step value. As a validation of the single-step procedure, an analysis is performed and shown to successfully explain the nonsymmetric response of La Villita Dam recorded in the 1985 Mexico Earthquake.

OSTI ID:
6696477
Journal Information:
Journal of Geotechnical Engineering; (United States), Journal Name: Journal of Geotechnical Engineering; (United States) Vol. 120:11; ISSN 0733-9410; ISSN JGENDZ
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English