Experimental and Nonlinear Analysis of Cracking in Concrete Arch Dams Due to Seismic Uplift Pressure Variations

Cracked concrete arch dam’s behavior due to moderate earthquake magnitude and water pressure variation was investigated. Plain concrete was used to cast the dam’s models with 45 Mpa design strength. A shake table has been planned, manufactured, and built to create a dynamic testing facility. The experimental work was included testing of four scaled-down concrete arch dams’ models, which is divided into two groups, each group contains two different degrees of curvature models. An artificial crack was made at the center of the dam’s body. The extended finite element method (XFEM) is outlined in order to address the numerical predicate for the propagation of a crack. The results showed that a good behavior of all arch dams under moderate earthquake intensity. The arch dam with a higher degree of curvature was recorded 17.8% and 16.2% low displacement at Z and X-direction respectively, stress evaluation and crack propagation in comparison with the arch dam owns the lowest degree of curvature. Hence, increasing the degree of curvature led to raising the stability of the dam, earthquake resistance, less displacement, and less growth of tensile cracks.