International Journal of Structural Stability and Dynamics

Vol. 14, No. 7 (2014) 1450021 (21 pages)

#
.c World Scientic Publishing Company
DOI: 10.1142/S0219455414500217

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams Under

Strong Earthquakes

Hou-Qun Chen*,, De-Yu Li*, and Sheng-Shan Guo,

*Xi'an

University of Technology Xi'an, Shanxi 710048, China

China Institute of Water Resources and

Hydropower Research Beijing, 100048, China
guoss@iwhr.com

Received 14 October 2013

Accepted 17 March 2014
Published 21 April 2014
A new concept for establishing the damage model for high concrete dams under earthquakes
based on damage mechanics is presented in this paper. Unlike the conventional approach of
considering the residual deformation by means of plastic-damage coupling, the proposed
approach relates the degraded apparent elastic moduli of loading and unloading directly to the
material experimental data. As such, the nonlinear analysis of the seismic response of damfoundation systems is simplied and more reasonable, with no recourse to plastic-damage
coupling. To verify the proposed approach of damagerupture process for high concrete dams,
the seismic behaviors of the Koyna gravity dam in India and the Shapai RCC arch dam in China
both subjected to strong earthquakes were examined. It is demonstrated that the proposed
approach can be reliably used to study the damagerupture behavior of concrete dams under
strong earthquakes.
Keywords: High concrete dam; seismic response; damage mechanics; residual deformation;
plasticdamage coupling.

1. Introduction
In China, large dams are playing a vital role in water resources management, ood
mitigation and clean energy supply, laying the foundation for sustainable development of the society and economy. According to the data provided by Chinese
Commission on large dams, by the end of 2005, there were 4860 large dams higher
than 30 m in China (37% of the world's total), of which 130 dams are higher than
100 m. For example, the Jinping I arch dam (H 305 m) is the highest arch dam in
the world, the Shuibuya embankment dam (H 233 m) was the highest concrete
face rockll dam (CFRD) and the Shapai arch dam was the highest roller compacted concrete (RCC) arch dam in the world at the time.

1450021-1

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

However, China is a country of high seismicity. A series of critical hydropower

projects with arch dams of about 300 m high are being constructed in severe seismic
regions. Consequently, there exists a need to study the seismic safety of large dams
particularly in China.
Considering the uncertainty of seismic input and the complexity of high dams of
various structural types, as well as the catastrophic aftermath of the so-called secondary disaster, it is of importance to prevent any collapse of high dams under the
largest reasonably conceivable earthquake dened as Maximum Credible Earthquake (MCE). This has been the strategic priority in the study on seismic safety of
high dams in China. However, there exist two major obstacles to assessing the
seismic catastrophe of high concrete dams: (1) How to clearly dene the MCE
conforming with the local characteristics of large near-site earthquake in terms of
site-specic seismic input parameters? (2) How to quantitatively evaluate the criteria
of limit states for dam rupture in design?
For quantitatively evaluating the criteria of limit states of dam rupture for
designers, a more realistic model with reasonable integral stability criterion of the
system is considered necessary.
Recently, a more realistic model for such systems has been developed with consideration of the following conditions: The dynamic interaction of dam-foundationreservoir system, the opening of dam contraction joints during the earthquake, the
topographical features and geological disturbances including critical potential sliding
blocks of near-eld foundation rock masses, the radiation damping of far-eld
foundation rock masses using articial transmitting boundaries or viscous damping
boundaries and also the innite element method,1,2 and the spatial variation of
seismic input along the dam foundation. With all the aforementioned eects simultaneously included, such a model is believed to be very close to the real one.3 In this
model, all the sliding interfaces of critical potential sliding blocks and dam-foundation interfaces are considered as nonthickness contact surfaces with coupled nodes
based on the dynamic contact theory.4
Currently the hydrodynamic pressure of reservoir water is usually treated added
masses at the upstream node points, with its compressibility neglected, especially for
rivers with heavy sedimentation in China. To model the hydrodynamic eect on the
arch dam, the use of Westergaard's added mass at the upstream dam surface may be
appropriate. The reason is that in this case the hydrodynamic pressure represented
by added mass for the arch dam will yield results that are generally in good agreement with those by nite element modeling.5
During an earthquake, strong ground motion energy will typically arrive from a
wide variety of azimuths and incident angles, which consists of shear waves, surface
waves and compressional waves. However, the strongest ground shaking with period
less than 1 s consists primarily of shear waves. Meanwhile, the fundamental period of
high concrete dams even of 300 m high located on high-velocity materials (e.g. hardrock sites) will be less than 1 s. For sites of high concrete dams, most shear waves are

1450021-2

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

nearly vertically incident to the shallow portion of the foundation. Consequently, the
seismic input is assumed to be vertically propagating to the base of the near eld
including the foundation.
The other consideration is that instead of using the conventional limit equilibrium
method of rigid body that does not reect the actual behavior of the system under a
strong earthquake, a new concept of dynamic instability of the dam system is
suggested as the criterion of limit state for dam rupture to be used in design. Here,
the dynamic instability is identied as the turning point of the displacement response
curves of the system under increasing seismic actions.6
The whole dam-foundation system is discrete in space by nite elements and in
time by central nite-dierence approximation. It is solved as a boundary nonlinear
wave propagation problem by an explicit integration scheme in time domain. The
model and the dynamic instability criterion have been adopted in the seismic design
of many high concrete dams in China.
However, in the above model both the dam concrete and foundation rock masses
were still taken as elastic materials. Consequently, the damagerupture process as the
key concern of quantitatively evaluating the criterion of the limit state of dam-rupture
cannot be simulated. In order to tackle this problem, the nonlinear material model that
takes into account crack initiation and propagation in the dam concrete and foundation rock masses should be adopted in the seismic response analysis of the system.
As it is well known, the damage of concrete and foundation rock masses as quasibrittle materials is the result of continuous development of random distributed
microcracks, there have been many attempts to simulate the cracking process in
concrete by using the discrete or smeared models,7 as well as the plasticity-based
model.8 For example, a nonorthogonal smeared crack and plasticity-based models
were used for the dynamic analysis of a concrete arch dam.9 However, some commonly existing problems in such modeling should be pointed out:
(1) There is no interaction assumed between the elastic and crack stiness matrixes,
nor among the normal and shear components in the crack matrix.
(2) It uses arbitrarily dened shear retention factor
and threshold angle  between
the new crack and previous crack(s) directions, as well as the parameters for
softening function under reciprocal loadings like the earthquake action.
(3) The stiness degradation is not considered in the idealized plasticity-based model.
In general, it seems that to analyze damagerupture process of concrete dams
during a strong earthquake by using the abovementioned models appears to be more
complicated and may give results with relative poor accuracy due to some arbitrarily
dened parameters. Therefore, from an engineering point of view, it can be more
reasonable to model the experimental phenomenological behavior of quasi-brittle
materials like concrete and jointed foundation rock masses at the macroscopic level
by using damage mechanics based on the basic hypotheses of isotropic damage and
strain equivalence.

1450021-3

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

It should be emphasized that although tensile strength is the only parameter that
governs the failure of concrete, it is a dominant one. Particularly for dam engineering, the cracking due to tensile stress is more concerned. Owing to the fact that
both the strength and design safety factor for concrete in compression are much
higher than those in tension, the concrete dam is hardly to be damaged due to
compressive stresses under an earthquake.
In this paper, an approach is proposed for establishing the damage model for
seismic analysis of high concrete dams based on damage mechanics, along with its
validation.
2. Damage Behavior of Concrete Dams in Rock Foundation Based on
Damage Mechanics
The cracking process in concrete is a continuous formation and connection of
microcracks. With this, the formation of microcracks is represented macroscopically
as strength softening and stiness degradation, which are related to a scale damage
variable D.
Based on the hypotheses of continuum isotropic damage and strain equivalence,
the basic features of the damage variable can be summarized as follows:
(1) The damage variable D is a scale variable that can take the value from zero to
one.
(2) The damage is assumed to be isotropic and smeared in the area related to the
sampling point.
(3) The degraded elastic modulus and the eective stress are dened as
E 1
DE0 , and 

=1
D, where E0 is the initial elastic modulus.

Stress/MPa

In principle, any proposed model and approach should be calibrated with

experimental data. So far, only the response behaviors of concrete to uniaxial compressive and tensile loadings have been implemented. Figure 1 shows the typical

Strain

Fig. 1. Experimental and idealized damage evolution functions of concrete under uniaxial cyclic tensile
loading.

1450021-4

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

experimental and idealized damage evolution functions of concrete under uniaxial

cyclic tensile loadings.
The experimental results of concrete indicate the following facts:
(1) The stress softening and stiness degradation clearly reveal when the stress
exceeds the strength of material.
(2) The unloading and reloading within the cycle under reciprocal loadings are
elastic with a degraded secant modulus, but without further damage. However,
there exists an irreversible strain.
(3) The damage evolution rules for tensile and compressive loadings are quite
dierent.
(4) The compressive properties are recovered upon crack closure as the load changes
from tension to compression.
(5) As a material property of concrete, the fracture energy G is the product of the area
under the damaged stressstrain curve \g" and the characteristic length \lcr ".
The nite element method is commonly used for the dynamic analysis of concrete
dams. Usually the characteristic length \lcr " is assumed equal to the side length of an
equivalent tributary area or volume at the Gaussian point of an isoparametric 2D or
3D nite element.
Considerable work has been performed on the dynamic analysis of concrete dams.
Most of them are limited to consideration of damages in the elastic range.1012
However, cracking in concrete and foundation rock masses is always present with
inelastic irreversible deformations which cannot be neglected in analysis. So, the
plastic-damage model for representing the general concrete damage behavior proposed by Lubliner et al.13 and Lee and Fenves14,15 which as implemented in the
commercial program ABAQUS16 has often been used. The plastic-damage model is
capable of modeling the damage behavior of concrete and other quasi-brittle
materials.
It is worthy to note that the inelastic residual deformation caused mainly by inner
friction in concrete is essentially dierent from the plastic deformation due to crystal
dislocation in homogeneous metal materials. There is no experimental data to validate that the inelastic residual deformation in concrete is conforming with the ow
rule of the plastic theory. Actually, the eect of inelastic residual deformation has
already been embodied in the stiness degradation in terms of the reduction of elastic
modulus as the major damage feature of concrete. Therefore, it is not necessary to
include the anisotropic plastic deformation for its inconsistency with the isotropic
damage assumption in the damage theory with scaled damage variable. Besides, the
calculation of the plastic potential has to be dened in the eective stress space and
an additional damage variable has to be used for determining the hardening variable
in the yield surface and damage evolution function. Also, the nonassociated plastic
ow has to be used for concrete damage plasticity. This will result in the uncertainties of selecting the dilatancy angle and in the unsymmetry of the material

1450021-5

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

stiness matrix. Furthermore, the plastic-damage coupling can lead to a rather

complicated numerical algorithm.
As of now, in the dynamic analysis of the damagerupture process of concrete
dams under strong earthquakes, the damage behavior of foundation rock masses has
been neglected at all. However, as the joint foundation rock masses are usually more
fragile than dam concrete, it has signicant eect on the damagerupture process of
the whole system and must be considered in the analysis.
Regarding this aspect, some basic concepts of the foundation rock masses have to
be considered. First of all, the damagerupture process of foundation rock masses is
quite complicated. Still there is no generally recognized modeling for foundation rock
masses. But it is commonly agreed that the jointed foundation rock masses are
always discontinuous with microcracks. So, it is suggested that both the tensile
strength and fracture energy of the rock masses may be less than those of dam
concrete. During a strong earthquake, the damage of jointed foundation rock masses
is mainly manifested by the cracking development caused by tensile stress. To
establish theoretical or experimental damage evolution function for rock masses is
unrealistic at present. Therefore, it is assumed that the evolution function of rock
masses and dam concrete are somewhat similar, as both of them are quasi-brittle
nonhomogeneous materials. Owing to the fact that no better approach exists so far,
the evolution function of rock masses will be borrowed from that of dam concrete
only by adjusting the strength in this study.
In view of the abovementioned facts, for engineering practice, a new approach is
provided herein to analyze the inelastic damagerupture process of concrete dams,
considering the irreversible residual deformation under alternated loadings of the
earthquake based directly on the experimental data, but excluding the plasticdamage coupling.
As it is well known, the strength of concrete is rate dependent. Numerous
researchers reported that both the dynamic tensile and compressive strengths are
higher than their static strengths.17 However, in experimental tests on plain concrete,18 it has been shown that the normalized damage evolution function is little
aected by the loading rate. It may be possible to determine the damage evolution
function of various loading rates only by measuring the damage evolution function at
static loading, but with adjustment made for tensile strength.

3. Implementation of the Proposed Approach for Seismic Analysis of

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams
The dam-foundation-reservoir system is multi-dimensional. In the proposed approach,
the Barcelona model is used as the damage surface function for dam concrete and
foundation rock masses.13
i
p
1 h
I1 3J2
h^1 i
cc 0;
F
1
1


1450021-6

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

where the I1 and J2 are the rst invariant of stress and second invariant of stress
deviator, respectively, and the  and
are the dimensionless constants evaluated by
the initial shape of damage surface, which are related to the ratio of equibiaxial to
uniaxial compressive strengths and the ratio of compressive to tensile strengths. The
constants  and
for concrete is usually taken as 0.12 and 7.68.13
As only the uniaxial compressive and tensile loading tests can be implemented,
the evolution functions in uniaxial tests must be extended for the multiaxial conditions. The transition from the multiaxial case to uniaxial case is carried out by
means of the maximum and minimum principal strains ("1 , "3 ) as the equivalent
strains. Also, in order to combine the tensile and compressive damage variables
deduced separately from the uniaxial tests into an equivalent damage variable D~
utilized for analyzing the multiaxial system, a weight factor is introduced, dened as
P
P
r^
 3i1 h^i i= 3i1 j^i j,
where ^i i 1; 2; 3 are the principal stress components and hxi 12 jxj x.
The nite element implementation of the proposed approach can be described as
follows:
Using the nite element method to solve the boundary problem of nonlinear
seismic response of the dam-foundation-reservoir system, the equations of equilibrium of the system are
::

~ fug fP g;
Mfu g Cfug K

where [M] is the mass matrix including the added mass of hydrodynamic pressure,
~  is the stiness matrix with the degradation moduli
[C] is the damping matrix, K
including the eect of irreversible strains if some part of the system are damaged,
::
:
fP g is the load vector including both the static and dynamic loads; f u g, fug, fug are
the acceleration, velocity and displacement response vectors, respectively. The
equations are solved by an explicit integration scheme in time domain.
During the ith time interval for the jth Gaussian integration point within the kth
element, the global strain and stress states, as well as the weight factor r, can be
calculated. Then the damage condition can be checked from the Barcelona damage
surface function F 0.
If F < 0, the concerned point is not damaged and its elastic modulus can be taken
as the original value E, otherwise, the point is damaged and the threshold strength
should be calculated relying on the principal stress vector and the damage surface
function F 0. It will be expressed in terms of tensile strength ft for r > 0 and of
compressive strength fc for r 0.
The uniaxial test damage evolution functions like the one in Fig. 1 (for tension
loading) can be adjusted by the threshold strength. From them, the functions of the
cracking displacement to degraded strength w
ft and to the increased damage
variable w
D can be directly derived. Then, from the experimental tensile or com
0  for the loading
pressive evolution functions the apparent modulus E
1
DE
"
"p





case and E 1
DE0 1
DE0 1
" " for the unloading and reloading
cases can be obtained, where D
is the apparent damage variable, D and " p are the
1450021-7

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

damage variable and irreversible strain corresponding to the state of initiation of

unloading of the cycle, respectively.
In the unloading and reloading cases of reciprocal loading, the eect of irreversible
strain has been considered in dening the degraded apparent modulus.
The loading/unloading conditions can simply be checked by comparing the values
of r"t (for tensile case) or of 1
r"c for compressive case) at the current ith time
interval with those values at the previous (i
1)th time interval.
Finally, the equivalent damage variable for the multiaxial dam-foundationreservoir system is assumed as D~ 1
1
1
rD
c 1
rD
t , and the corresponding equivalent degraded elastic modulus for the multiaxial system is taken as
~ 0.
E~ 1
DE
Within the loading and unloading cycle considered in the uniaxial damage evol
ution function, the irreversible strain in terms of " p "
1
DE
can be calculated.
0
p
For the tension unloading case, when " is close to " as the load changes from
tension to compression, the irreversible strain state of the multiaxial system can
be calculated from Eq. (2) with consideration of the equivalent degraded elastic

1
DE
~ 0 f1
1
rD
c 1
rD
t gE0 of the damaged point,
modulus E
where r is the weight factor, when the calculated maximum principal strain "1 of the
Gaussian point concerned equals the corresponding irreversible strain " p of the
uniaxial evolution function.
Generally speaking, it is same for the compression loading case, only the value
1
r instead of r will be taken, and both the irreversible strain states of tension
and compression loading cases will be accumulated and kept under reciprocal
loading.
However, as was mentioned above, in engineering practices, the concrete dam is
hardly to be damaged due to compressive stresses even under strong earthquakes.
For the present purpose, it is acceptable not to consider compressive damage in the
seismic analysis of concrete dams. Then, the degraded equivalent damage variable
~ 1
DE
~ 0.
and elastic modulus accordingly become D~ 1
1
rD
t and E
Once the irreversible strain state is considered in the multiaxial dam-foundationreservoir system, the displacement vector fug in the equations of equilibrium of the
system, Eq. (2), will be replaced by fu
u p g.
In addition, it should be noted that in the analysis of dam-foundation-reservoir
system for foundation rock masses, the following factors must be considered:
(1) The radiation damping of the far-eld foundation should be taken into account.
(2) The vertical and horizontal components of the initial stresses of the foundation
should be included, which are usually over 1.2 and 1.0 times the dead load of the
rock mass, respectively, according to the experience of geological engineers.
(3) The seepage stresses should be calculated with consideration of the eects of
grout curtain and drainage system in the foundation.
(4) The tensile and compressive strengths can be derived from the MohrCoulomb
formula by the friction coecient f and viscous coecient c, as well as the
1450021-8

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

deformation modulus E of the rock masses. Those are the only parameters
provided by geological engineers for dam engineering.
Obviously, the proposed approach seems to be more consistent with the basic
assumption of smeared isotropic damage, and greatly simplies the implementation
of the analysis algorithm in comparison with the plastic-damage coupling method.
4. Validation of the Proposed Approach by the Behaviors of Dams Under
Strong Earthquakes
To verify the proposed approach for simulating the damagerupture process of high
concrete dams, the dynamic behaviors of the Koyna gravity dam in India and the
Shapai RCC arch dam in China, both subjected to strong earthquakes, will be
analyzed as cases of validation.
4.1. Seismic damage of the concrete gravity Koyna dam
On December 11, 1967 the Koyna gravity dam made of rubble concrete (H 104 m)
above massive basalt foundation in India was subjected to a strong earthquake of
M 6:5 with a PGA of 0.51 g at the dam site. Impenetrate cracks were discovered
mainly in upstream at about EL 762.2 m (2500 ft.) and in downstream at EL 792.7 m
(2600 ft.) near the abrupt change of downstream slope.
After the earthquake, the leakage increased from 500 to 1500 L/min, but the
uplift pressures did not indicate any sudden increase and the bore core indicated that
the dam-foundation interface was well connected. Obviously, the grout curtain was
not damaged.1921
The 26th highest monolithic nonoverow section with a height of 103 m, as shown
in Fig. 2, was analyzed as a plane stress problem. At rst a rigid dam foundation was
assumed for comparison of the result of the example using ABAQUS. Figure 3 is the
nite element mesh of the dam using four-node quadrilateral isoparametric nite
elements with 2  2 Gaussian integration. Dierent element sizes were used. The size

Fig. 2. Damage to Koyna dam due to earthquake on December 11, 1967.

1450021-9

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

Fig. 3. Finite element mesh of the dam.

Fig. 4. Horizontal and vertical accelerograms recorded.

of the elements used for dam mostly was 23 m, but the minimum element size
near the dam base and the abrupt change of downstream slope was taken to be less
than 2 m.
Figure 4 shows the horizontal and vertical components of ground motion accelerograms vertically to be inputted at the dam base, which were recorded in an inspect
gallery 10 m from the bottom near the left bank in a 30 m high dam monolith.
Figure 5 is the derived functions of cracking displacement to the degraded tensile
strength w
ft and to the increased damage variable w
D for concrete of the
example used in the ABAQUS analysis for Koyna dam.
With reference to the example of ABAQUS, the material parameters were taken
as follows: Original elastic modulus E0 31 GPa, Poisson ratio  0:2, density
 2643 kg/m,3 Adynamic tensile strength ft 2:9 MPa, specic fracture energy
GF 200 N/m, stiness parameter of damping of the Rayleigh type
0:00323.
The results between the proposed approach and the plastic-damage approach are
compared in Fig. 6. It seems that the result of the proposed approach can better t
the real cracking elevation level at upstream, which was located somewhere lower
than that at downstream. However, the damage along the dam-foundation interface
1450021-10

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

3.0
2.5

0.8

1.5
D

f t /MPa

1.0

2.0

1.0

0.6
0.4

G F=200N/m

0.5

0.2
0.0

0.0
0

50

100
150
w/m

200

250

50

100

150

200

250

w/m

w-D`

w-ft

Fig. 5. Functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile strength w
ft and to damage variable
w
D for concrete.

Proposed approaches

Plas
c-damage approaches

Fig. 6. Comparison of the results between the proposed approach and the plastic-damage approach.

for both approaches due to the rigid foundation assumption is obviously not in
agreement with the reality.
Therefore, an analysis of the dam-foundation system will be carried out to consider damages both in the dam and foundation rock masses. Figure 7 is the nite
element mesh of the dam-foundation system. The size of the near-eld foundation is
400  200 m. Only the upper central area of the foundation with a size of about
175  50 m as the potential damage part was simulated with a ner element size of
abont 2 m and nonlinear material properties. The size of elastic elements was less
than 10 m. Figure 8 is the functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile
strength w
ft and to damage variable w
D for the foundation, borrowed from
dam concrete and adjusted by the tensile strength of the rock masses. The material
parameters for the foundation were taken as tensile strength ft 2c  cos=1
sin 1:28 MPa ( 54:46  ; c 2:0 MPa), original elastic modulus E0 20 GPa,
1450021-11

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

Fig. 7. Finite element mesh of dam-foundation system.

stiness parameter of damping of the Rayleigh type
0:00323, Poisson's ratio

 0:2, density  2700 kg/m, GF 88:4 N/m.
In analysis, the viscoelastic damping boundaries were used.22 The interaction
force at the articial boundaries can be dened using the free eld response as
:
fP bf g Kb fu fb g Cb fu fb g  fb nfAb g, where Kb ; Cb  are the damping and
:: f
:
spring matrices , fu b g, fu fb g and f fb g are the free eld displacement, velocity and
stress vectors, Ab and n are the area and normal direction of the boundary surface.
For normal dispersive waves, the damping coecient is Cn vp and the spring
coecient is Kn E=2rb , while for shear dispersive waves, they are Cs vs and
Ks G=2rb . Here, ; E and G denote the density, elastic
and shear moduli
of the
p
p
foundation rock masses, respectively. The variable vp E= and vs G= are
the velocities of compressive and shear waves. The variable rb is an average distance
from the wave source to the point concerned, assumed to be the distance from the

1.2

1.0

1.0

0.8

0.8
D

f t /MPa

1.4

0.6

0.6
0.4
0.4
GF=88.4N/m

0.2

0.2
0.0

0.0
0

50

100
150
w/m

200

250

50

100

150

200

250

w/m

w-D

w-f t

Fig. 8. Functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile strength w
ft and to damage variable
w
D-D for foundation.
1450021-12

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

Fig. 9. Damage with proposed model.

center of the dam base to the articial boundaries. The parameters of viscous
damping boundaries of the foundation were taken as Kn 5  10 7 N/m3,
Cn 7:75  10 6 N s/m3, Ks 2:08  10 7 N/m3, Cs 4:74  10 6 N s/m3.
However, in this case, the free eld displacement and velocity obtained by integration of the acceleration must be input to the viscous damping boundaries. The
input acceleration was assumed to be half of the value dened usually on the at
ground of the rock foundation.
To consider the damage both in the dam and foundation rock masses, the analytical results indicate that the cracks appear not along the dam-foundation interface, but extended vertically in the foundation rock masses near the dam heel
(Fig. 9). So, both the interface and the grout curtain are not damaged, as it was
veried by the investigation after 1967 earthquake in Koyna Dam. For comparison,
the DrukerPrager model was also used for the foundation rock masses. However, in
this case the damage along the interface as well as in grout curtain in terms of plastic
area still exists (Fig. 10). This means that the DrukerPrager model does not reect
the real earthquake behavior at the dam-foundation interface. Besides, an elastic
damage model without residual deformation was also used for comparison. The
results reveal that the elastic damage model leads to underestimating the crack
opening at the upstream surface of the upper part of the dam. So, the eect of
residual deformation under the unloading and reloading cycle should be considered in
the damagerupture process analysis of the concrete dam.
4.2. Seismic behavior of the Shapai RCC arch dam
On May 12, 2008, the Shapai RCC arch dam in China was attacked by the strong
Wenchuan earthquake of M 8:0 with an epicentral distance of about 36 km. The
reservoir water level is 1860.0 m during the quake, 6 m below the normal design level.
No damage was found by a thorough inspection of the dam site after the earthquake.
The Shapai dam of 130 m high, completed in 2006, was the world's highest RCC arch
1450021-13

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

Fig. 10. Damage with DrukerPrager model for foundation.

dam at the time. The dam is a three-centred gravity arch structure with a crest
length of 250.25 m, a thickness of 9.5 m thick at the crest and of 28 m at the base.
There are two contraction joints and two induced joints along the arch direction. The
dam is founded on granite and granodiorite formations making up the relatively
steep-walled and V-shaped canyon. The dam abutments are supported by rock mass
of class II without continuous plane of weakness. The seismic design of the dam has
been carried out with a design peak acceleration of 0.138 g corresponding to a return
period of about 500 years based on a special seismic hazard analysis for the dam site.
Since the dam remains undamaged under an earthquake much higher than the design
one, some explanations should be given for this, and this forms part of the objective
of this study. Figure 11 is the nite element mesh of the dam-foundation system
using eight-node solid isoparametric nite elements with 2  2  2 Gaussian integration points. Dierent element sizes were used. Figure 12 is the nite element mesh

Fig. 11. FEM mesh of dam-foundation system.

1450021-14

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

Fig. 12. FEM mesh of nonlinear elements.

0.3

0.2

0.2

0.1
0.0
-0.1

0.2

Acceleration/g

0.3

Acceleration/g

Acceleration/g

of nonlinear elements adopted for the dam and roughly 50 m adjacent jointed rock
mass with a minimum element size of about 23 m. The element size of elastic
foundation rock masess was about 1025 m. The size of the near-eld foundation is
649  498  342 m (cross river  along river  vertical). The total number of nodes,
elements and degrees of freedom are 425568, 404090 and 1276704, respectively.
All the static loads such as water, seepage and silt pressure, temperature load,
dead load and initial ground stresses are considered consistently with the conditions
existing at the time of the earthquake. Since no ground motion has been recorded at
the dam site during the Wenchuan earthquake, it has to be re-established by using
the \stochastic nite fault method" with model and parameters identied by the
accelerograms recorded at 7 stations during the earthquake. Figure 13 is the reestablished three components of the articial accelerograms for the Shapai dam site
with PGA of 0.262 g and long duration of more than 40 min.
The concrete strength is determined by tests with the cylinder specimens drilled
directly from the Shapai arch dam body after the Wenchuan Earthquake. Splitting
tensile test was conducted. The design tensile strength was taken as the apparent
strength of the splitting tensile test, which is approximately equal to the strength of
modulus of the rupture test.17 Figure 14 is the derived functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile strength w
ft and to damage variable w
D from
the evolution curves of the tests. The material parameters are taken as original

0.1
0.0
-0.1

0.1
0.0
-0.1

-0.2

-0.2

-0.2

-0.3

-0.3
0

30

60

90
Time/s

120

1 50

30

60

90
Time/s

120

150

30

60

90
Time/s

Fig. 13. Re-established articial accelerograms at Shapai dam site (from Zhang Cuiran).

1450021-15

120

150

1.0

0.8

0.6

f t /MPa

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

0.4

0.2

G F=296N/m

0.0

0
0

50

100
150
w/m

200

250

50

100

150
w/m

200

250

w-D

w-f t

Fig. 14. Functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile strength w
ft and to damage variable
w
D for concrete.

elastic modulus E0 18 GPa, Poisson ratio  0:167, density  2400 kg/m3,

dynamic tensile strength ft 4:3 MPa, specic fracture energy GF 296 N/m,
stiness parameter of damping of the Rayleigh type
:00323. Figure 15 shows the
adjusted functions of cracking displacement to the degradation tensile strength
w
ft and to the damage variable w
D. The material parameters are taken as
E0 11 GPa,  0:23,  2600 kg/m3, ft 2c  cos=1 sin 1:55 MPa (
47:73  ; c 2:0 MPa), GF 107 N/m. The parameters of viscous damping boundaries of the foundation were taken as Kn 1:61  10 7 N/m3, Cn 5:76  10 6 N s/m3,
Ks 0:65  10 7 N/m3, Cs 3:41  10 6 N  s/m3.
The shear strengths of contraction and induced joints were taken as f 1:1;
c 1:1 MPa. The tensile strength of contraction joints and induced joints were zero
and half of the tensile strength of the concrete, respectively.

1.6

1.2

1.0

1.0

0.8

0.8

0.6

f t /MPa

1.4

0.6

0.4
0.4
G F=107N/m

0.2

0.2
0.0

0.0
0

50

100
150
w/m

200

250

w-f t

50

100

150
w/m

200

250

w-D

Fig. 15. Functions of cracking displacement to degradation tensile strength w
ft and to damage variable
w
D for foundation.
1450021-16

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

Table 1. Eciency of parallel computation.
Number of processes

10

11

Eciency

100%

96%

92%

84%

78%

69%

62%

It should be noted that the storage capacity and the computation time of dynamic
analysis for the seismic responses of such an arch dam system are enormous. Furthermore, the duration of the seismic input of the Wenchuan Earthquake is quite
long. Thus, recourse should be there to high-performance parallel computation
technique. A 3D nite element parallel program for the nonlinear seismic analysis of
high arch dams based on the damage theory with the damage variable and smeared
model using the algorithm of proposed approach has been developed. A multicore
computer with 12 CPU was used. The eciency of parallel computation is shown in
Table 1.
The calculated results presented in Fig. 16 show that the dam is basically not
damaged even near the bottom pedestal, but the jointed foundation rock body is
damaged, as the tensile strength and fracture energy of the cracked foundation rock
body are less than those of the dam concrete.
For comparison, the results obtained of damageable model for dams with the
DrukerPrager model for foundation rock masses are shown in Fig. 17. In this case,
the dam is damaged near the bottom pedestal in the form of plastic deformation.
Furthermore, two cases were considered for comparison. One is a damageable
dam with elastic foundation and the other with elastic dam and foundation. As
shown in Figs. 18 and 19, in the two cases the dam is signicantly damaged due to

El. 1842 arch section

Upstream dam surface

Crown
El. 1798 arch section

Downstream dam surface

Foundation

Fig. 16. Damage of jointed foundation rock masses.

1450021-17

El. 1754 arch section

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

El. 1842 arch section

Upstream dam surface

Crown
El. 1798 arch section

Downstream dam surface

El. 1754 arch section

Foundation

Fig. 17. Damageable model for dam with DrukerPrager model for foundation rock masses.

stress concentration near the interface with foundation and, especially, near the
bottom pedestal.
By comparing all the models, it seems that the results of the proposed model and
approach are more appropriate for verifying the behavior of the Shapai arch dam
during the Wenchuan Earthquake.

Upstream dam surface

Downstream dam surface

Crown cantilever section

Fig. 18. Damageable dam with elastic foundation.

1450021-18

DamageRupture Process of Concrete Dams

Upstream dam surface

Downstream dam surface

Fig. 19. Elastic dam and foundation.

5. Conclusions
A new concept for establishing the damage model for the seismic study of high
concrete dams based on damage mechanics was presented in this paper. The concept
of apparent damage variables includes the eect of irreversible deformation in
unloading, but avoids the plastic-damage coupling. From the engineering point of
view, the proposed approach appears to be more reasonable for modeling the
experimental phenomenological behavior of quasi-brittle materials like concrete and
jointed foundation rock masses at the macroscopic level. The advantage with this
approach is that it can t better the basic hypotheses of isotropic damage and strain
equivalence, and is signicantly simplied in algorithm as mentioned above. Through
the examples of the two concrete dams under strong earthquakes, with one damaged
but the other intact, the present approach appears to produce results that are in good
agreement with the real behaviors of the dams during the earthquake. Based on the
present numerical analyses, some conclusions are drawn:
(1) The damagerupture process is the key problem of quantitatively evaluating the
criterion of limit state for the concrete dam-rupture for designers.
(2) The damage theory with scaled damage variable and smeared-crack model is
more applicable for studying the damagerupture process of concrete, since it is
based on calibration with experimental data.
(3) The damage evolution both of the dam and foundation rock masses should be
considered. The usually jointed foundation rock masses with micro ssures will
be damaged earlier than the dam during strong earthquake.
(4) Using the DrukerPrager model for evaluating the damage of the foundation
rock masses may not reect the reality.
1450021-19

H.-Q. Chen, D.-Y. Li & S.-S. Guo

(5) The irreversible deformation in the damage evolution model should be considered, but the damage-plastic theory may not be appropriate for the cases
considered.
(6) In dam engineering practice, the proposed approach appears to be more suitable
for analyzing the damagerupture process of both the concrete arch and gravity
dams under strong earthquakes.
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