Observed displacement data-based identification method of deformation time-varying effect of high concrete dams

The long-term safety of high concrete dams has become the focus and central issues of public attention. Deformation is an actual comprehensive reflection of concrete dams. Especially the deformation time-varying effect, is a key index for evaluating the structural behavior, health status, and their evolution of a concrete dam in long-term service. In this paper, causing factors of the deformation time-varying effect of concrete dams were analyzed, and the time-varying effect was divided into two parts, which are the inherent time-varying effect and the time-varying effect caused by the change of dam structural performance. Then, based on the observed dam displacement and the wavelet multi-resolution analysis, causal models for identifying the later deformation time-varying effect and the identification process were proposed. Finally, the efficiency and rationality of the proposed method were verified by two actual concrete dams with runoff reservoir and regulatory reservoir.