Evaluation of anti-explosion performance of Shuibuya concrete-faced rockfill dam slabs subjected to strong shock waves caused by an underwater explosion

A concrete plastic-damage model, the extended Drucker–Prager model for rockfill, and acoustic elements for water were introduced and applied to the impact fracture analysis of a concrete-faced rockfill dam–water three-dimensional system. The plastic-damage dynamic analysis process was used in combination with the concrete compressive and tensile damage model. The 223-m high Shuibuya concrete-faced rockfill dam was analyzed using an explicit integration. Numerical simulations of the damage threshold, rockfill modeling, and interface processing were conducted to research the effect of the anti-explosion performance that occurs when a concrete slab is subjected to an underwater shock wave. The simulation results indicate that the main regions of weakness in the slabs during an underwater shock wave are determined by the tensile damage. The slab’s anti-knock weak areas appear in the right dam abutment and the top of the left dam. The anti-knock performance in the upper slab is inferior to that of the lower slab. Specific local optimization steps should be applied at these locations to improve the slabs’ anti-knock capabilities, which are important for designing concrete-faced rockfill dams.