Correlation Study between Seismic Intensity Measures and Nonlinear Response of Arch Dam via Endurance Time Analysis

Predicting the structural response efficiently and quickly is a major focus in civil engineering. For concrete dams, due to the structure’s complexity, it is difficult to obtain the structural performance timely through a large number of calculations. In this paper, the relationship between structural responses and seismic intensity mesures (IMs) is established under the framework of endurance time analysis method (ETAM) with its good accuracy and high efficiency. Baihetan arch dam is selected as a case study, and the dam-reservoir-foundation system is excited under fourteen sets of endurance time acceleration functions (ETAFs) which are generated through the response spectra of ground motion records. The results show that, compared with displacement-dependent damage indices (DIs), damage-dependent DIs can better reflect damage characteristics of the arch dam under different damage levels. Among the ETA-related IMs, the combined spectral acceleration is the most practical and proficient, followed by acceleration spectral intensity (ASI) and effective peak acceleration (EPA). For high arch dam, the influence of the higher order modes should be fully taken into account when establishing the correlation between the structural response and the IMs. The sufficiency of IMs based on structural response should also be fully demonstrated.