Methodology for a probabilistic analysis of an RCC gravity

dam construction. Modelling of temperature, hydration

degree and ageing degree fields
a b a a b
A. Gaspar , F. Lopez-Caballero , A. Modaressi-Farahmand-Razavi , A. Gomes-Correia
a

Laboratoire MSSMat CNRS UMR 8579, Ecole Centrale Paris, Grande Voie des Vignes, 92290 Châtenay-
Malabry, France
b

Universidade do Minho, Escola de Engenharia, Instituto para a Sustentabilidade e Inovação em Estruturas de

Engenharia, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal

Abstract

This work intends to be a novel application of probabilistic tools to improve the comprehension
of heat transfer phenomena during a roller-compacted-concrete (RCC) dam construction. A
probabilistic thermal model is proposed to propagate uncertainties on some RCC’s physical
properties. A thermo-chemo-mechanical model is used to describe the RCC behaviour. A global
sensitivity analysis is performed via the RBD-FAST method in order to evaluate the influence of some
parameters which are given a random character. Heterogeneity on those parameters is further taken
into account by means of bi-dimensional random fields. A variance reduction of the model output is
observed while using random fields to propagate uncertainties. It shall be enhanced here that the
present paper only concerns the thermal behaviour of the RCC dam during construction. In this
sense, the temperature, hydration degree and ageing fields are modelled.

Introduction

The Eurocode approach has motivated the use of semi-probabilistic methods for the safety evaluation
of civil engineering structures. However, it is known that the partial safety factors are conservative,
which in some cases leads to an over-dimensioning of the structure and consequently over-cost
estimation.

Therefore, fully probabilistic methods have been studied during the last two decades so that
uncertainty can be propagated through the limit state function via a stochastic-oriented methodology.
Efforts have been accomplished towards this direction in the Dam Engineering field, namely in the
works of Westberg [1], Carvajal et al. [2] and Altarejos-García et al. [3], among others. In those
works, probabilistic tools are applied to the safety evaluation of concrete dams under service by
giving a random character mostly to hydraulic charges (e.g., uplift and headwater). Westberg [1] also
considers uncertainties related to some material parameters such as concrete density and cohesion
between dam and rock. Reliability techniques such as FORM/SORM and Monte Carlo are used on all
the three works cited above. However, to complement the works cited above, in this study attention is
given to the construction phase of the dam. To do so, a roller-compacted concrete (RCC) dam
behavior is simulated during the successive layer’s placement (construction technique used in RCC
dams).

It is well known that due to the advances in numerical simulation performance, the numerical models
representing the complex behavior of concrete at early-age (i.e., thermo-chemo-mechanical (TChM)
coupling) are commonly used in practice [4], [5], [6]. This kind of model permits to better
understand the RCC dam behavior during the construction phase. The necessary data for those
models are obtained by laboratory tests or/and in-situ measurements. From the available literature
data (e.g. [7], [8], [9], it is pointed out that TChM concrete properties are significantly affected by
varying intrinsic material parameters such as the aggregates’ conductivity, the cement content or the
water-to-cement ratio. Therefore, the uncertainty associated with these parameters determination
should be considered. Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis are already widely applied to other
concrete studies, such as in applications on bridges structures.
In this paper, an uncertainty analysis is performed over the model by giving some input parameters a
random character. Because considering all uncertainties related to the problem is a numerically
expensive task, a global sensitivity analysis may be previously performed to quantify the influence of
uncertain input parameters on the response variability of the numerical model output. The first-order
sensitivity indices obtained for each studied set of parameters give precious information that help
and support the decision of which input uncertainties are worth be considered in the model or which
properties must be measured with a good accuracy, establishing a kind of “hierarchy” on input
parameters.
From this point of view, the sensitivity studies are also relevant by giving support to attribute a
certain parameter a deterministic character, once that parameter was predefined as uncertain
given in situ or experimental measures. This is a very important feature which contributes to lighten
the uncertainty analysis. Furthermore, the global sensitivity analysis will not only allow the
evaluation of each random variable’s importance on the output, but also how that importance
changes given different boundary conditions (e.g. under adiabatic or non-adiabatic conditions).
In addition, even if concrete placing is controlled during construction, some spatial heterogeneity
could appear. Spatial heterogeneity is then introduced via random fields theory on the most influent
parameters. A variance reduction is observed while using bi-dimensional random fields to introduce
special randomness on input parameters.

It shall be stressed here that the work presented in this paper only accounts for the thermal behavior
of the dam, being its main objective to describe and present a methodology to account for
uncertainties within the numerical modelling of an RCC dam construction. The application of the
proposed probabilistic methodology on the fully thermo-mechanical modelling will be object of a
further study. Therefore, one should bear in mind that the conclusions of the present paper may be
seen as preliminary conclusions that shall be reinforced in a future paper. Furthermore, one may not
forget that in dam engineering each case is unique and that the adopted parameters (either they are
deterministic or random) shall be adapted to each one and, as frequently as possible, rely on
laboratory and field data.

Resuming this work in some points:


a gravity RCC dam layered construction is simulated using a FEM formulation;


uncertainties related to some model parameters are taken into account, in a first approach via
random variables and then by means of random fields generated by Monte Carlo sampling
method;


the choice of input uncertainties is based on a preliminary global sensitivity analysis
performed with the Random balance design Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test (RBD-FAST)
[12], [13];

as a first approach, only thermal effects are considered in the model presented in this paper. In
further works a fully thermo-chemo-mechanical model will be used.
In the following, the framework of this study will be firstly exposed in Section 2, namely a brief
theoretical description of the thermo-chemo-mechanical model, the sensitivity analysis test and the
random fields theory that were used for this work. Then, in Section 3 an application of the proposed
methodology is exposed by describing the model parameters and random variables. Finally, in
Section 4 the results are presented and discussed.
Section snippets

Numerical model

The numerical model used in this work is intended to represent the construction phase of a roller-
compacted concrete (RCC) gravity dam. The RCC is a low cement content (≈200kg/m3) type of concrete
which can be casted and compacted by successive layers/lifts. These two characteristics are inter-
related since the layered construction is only possible because the low cement content leads to less
heat production and consequently lower temperature gradients within the structure. Those
temperature

Application

The dam model used in this work consists of an RCC gravity dam body of 28.2 m high, 30 m wide at
its base level and with a downstream slope of 0.8 (Fig. 1). The foundation is also represented in this
model in order to account for its thermal effect on the first layers of the RCC dam. As recalled before,
in future works the mechanical behavior of both RCC and the foundation shall be added. Concerning
the thermal boundary conditions, the bottom and lateral faces of the foundation are insulated,

Results and discussion

First of all, a deterministic calculation, that will serve as reference result, is performed using the
mean values for each parameter described in Table 3. The temperature, hydration degree and
compressive strength evolutions will be analyzed at the two points within the dam body, introduced
in Section 3.

Conclusions

A probabilistic numerical model was used to investigate the effect of some RCC properties’ variability
on the thermal behavior of a dam. As far as the authors are aware, this is the first application of
uncertainty and sensitivity analysis, using RBD-FAST method and random fields to input material
heterogeneity, in the analysis of an RCC dam behavior during its construction. The main conclusions
drawn from this study are as follows:

 •
a global sensitivity analysis, performed via RBD-FAST

Acknowledgements
This work has the financial support of the first author’s PhD scholarship by FCT (Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology): SFRH/BD/63939/2009. This scholarship is within the
POPH program (Human Potential Operational Program) and is co-financed by the ESF (European
Social Fund).