Safety Assessment of an Existing Concrete Gravity Dam

by Romeo B. Baylosis, Tennessee Valley Authority, United States,
Richard M. Bennett, Tennessee Valley Authority, United States,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Structural Safety and Reliability

Abstract:

The safety and/or probability of failure of an existing 146 m high concrete gravity dam subjected to normal static and dynamic loads is evaluated. Three modes of failure were considered, namely, sliding, overturning, and overstressing. Two reservoir levels were considered: one with the reservoir level being a random variable, and the other with the reservoir level being a deterministic value corresponding to flood level. A suite of thirty-nine actual earthquake acceleration time history records were used for the dynamic input. A thermal analysis was also conducted based on measured temperature readings. The results indicated that the critical modes of failure are overturning and overstressing during an earthquake. The study describes a probabilistic generalized methodology of quantifying the uncertainties of input random variables and performing a probabilistic risk assessment.

Subject Headings: Gravity dams | Concrete dams | Dam failures | Probability | Failure analysis | Reservoirs | Failure modes

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