This paper reports on a numerical simulation of the early-age behavior of a concrete arch dam during construction and initial reservoir filling. The simulation couples chemo-thermal and mechanical analyses, accounting for heat transfer during concrete hydration and the resulting stresses and deformations. Material properties were defined based on laboratory tests of concrete samples. Predicted temperatures, displacements and stresses were compared to field monitoring data, demonstrating the model's ability to accurately simulate the dam's chemo-thermal-mechanical response during construction and initial reservoir filling.
This paper reports on a numerical simulation of the early-age behavior of a concrete arch dam during construction and initial reservoir filling. The simulation couples chemo-thermal and mechanical analyses, accounting for heat transfer during concrete hydration and the resulting stresses and deformations. Material properties were defined based on laboratory tests of concrete samples. Predicted temperatures, displacements and stresses were compared to field monitoring data, demonstrating the model's ability to accurately simulate the dam's chemo-thermal-mechanical response during construction and initial reservoir filling.
This paper reports on a numerical simulation of the early-age behavior of a concrete arch dam during construction and initial reservoir filling. The simulation couples chemo-thermal and mechanical analyses, accounting for heat transfer during concrete hydration and the resulting stresses and deformations. Material properties were defined based on laboratory tests of concrete samples. Predicted temperatures, displacements and stresses were compared to field monitoring data, demonstrating the model's ability to accurately simulate the dam's chemo-thermal-mechanical response during construction and initial reservoir filling.
Numerical simulation of the early-age concrete behaviour of an arch dam
Noemí Schclar Leitão, Eloísa Castilho
Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC)
Av. do Brasil, 101, 1700-066 Lisbon, Portugal
This paper reports a case study of the chemo-thermal-mechanical analysis of a concrete
arch dam during its construction and during the first filling of the reservoir. The coupling between the chemo-thermal analysis and the mechanical analysis is taken into account by the load transfer method. The nonlinear chemo-thermal and mechanical codes used in the analysis were developed by the authors. The hydration kinetics model is formulated in the framework of thermodynamics of chemically reactive porous media based in the model presented by Ulm and Coussy. To characterize the chemical behaviour of the concrete mix, an analytical expression for the normalized affinity function is used. No specific adiabatic calorimetric tests were carried out and therefore, in order to define the material constants, an exponential function is calibrated by the best fitting of the estimated heat of hydration at the ages of 3, 7 and 28 days. Some issues concerning the chemo-thermal FEM analysis of concrete dams are also addressed, namely the variations of the environmental actions according to the time of the day and the time of the year, and the solar radiation simulation. The predicted temperatures obtained from the numerical analysis are compared with the actual temperatures recorded in-situ by the monitoring system installed in the dam. The structural response of the dam is assessed by a viscoelastic model. The parameters of the double power creep law are defined based on laboratory tests performed on samples extracted during construction. Mechanical analysis is carried out using a model in which the arch dam is divided into a series of monoliths separated by radial vertical contraction joints. The contraction joints and the dam-foundation contact surface are represented by zero thickness interface elements. The predicted displacements and stresses are then compared with the those recorded in situ. The finite element codes used in this study allow good quality simulations of the chemo- thermal-mechanical response of the arch dam to be obtained, during the dam construction and during the first filling of the reservoir.