The effect of reservoir length on the earthquake behavior of roller compacted concrete dams

Finite element analysis is an effective method for evaluating roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dams in the earthquake zone and investigating earthquake response of RCC dams. The primary aim of this research is to inspect the effect of various reservoir lengths on the earthquake response of a selected RCC dam under strong ground motion effect. This study presents two-dimensional earthquake response of Cine RCC dam considering geometrical and material non-linearity in time-history analyses. The Drucker-Prager material model is used in the materially non-linear analyses for concrete and also foundation rock. The reservoir length of RCC dam is modeled respectively as half, itself, two times, three times, five times and ten times of the dam height. The dam–reservoir-foundation interaction is modeled by the contacttarget element couples. The hydrodynamic pressure of the reservoir water is modeled with two dimensional fluid finite elements based on the Lagrangian approach. 1999 Duzce Earthquake acceleration records are considered in all dynamic analysis. According to non-linear time history analyses, the horizontal displacements and principle stress components are compared and evaluated.