Seasonal Thermal Cracking of Concrete Dams in Northern Regions
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 28, Issue 4
Abstract
In several northern regions around the world, concrete dams are subjected to severe seasonal temperature variations, with up to 75°C changes from summer to winter. Those variations contribute to the degradation of the stiffness, strength, and durability of concrete dams. Thermal stresses and related concrete cracking also need to be evaluated to ensure the structural stability of the dam and to define the initial conditions for unusual or extreme load combinations, such as floods and earthquakes. This paper presents finite-element modeling procedures for assessing the thermomechanical behaviors of concrete dams. The stress relaxation and mechanical properties that depend on the temperature of the concrete are first investigated by considering the thermomechanical responses of simple notched beam models. Heat transfer and thermomechanical analyses are then presented for a 31-m concrete gravity dam and a 214-m multiple arch dam located in Canada. It is shown that temperature-dependent material properties do not significantly affect the structural response of the dam. Oblique cracks present on the downstream face of the multiple arch dam are successfully reproduced by the proposed numerical model. Modeling of the related cracked arch flexibility using equivalent linear continuum concrete constitutive models is also discussed.
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Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Québec Funds for research on nature and technology (FQRNT), and Hydro-Québec, and the collaboration of Hydro-Québec engineers who provided field data and the multiple arch dam FE model used in this study.
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© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Nov 8, 2012
Accepted: Jun 4, 2013
Published online: Jun 6, 2013
Published in print: Aug 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Oct 22, 2014
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