A Comparative Study of Cantilever- and Integral-Type Dead Loads on the Seismic Responses of High Arch Dams

The actual dead load of an arch dam should be applied gradually through staged construction and sequenced grouting. However, the cantilever- and integral-type dead loads commonly used in the analysis of arch dams represent simplified versions of the actual loading. In this paper, these two types of dead loads, i.e. cantilever and integral types, are presented based on the Lagrange multiplier method considering the nonlinear behaviors of contraction joints. Based on the finite element method and an appropriate contact model together with artificial viscoelastic boundary conditions, a dynamic analysis model of a dam–foundation–reservoir system is established in consideration of the interactions between the arch dam and foundation, the opening and closing of contraction joints, and the radiation damping effect of the far-field boundary. Taking a 300 m high arch dam in the strong earthquake area of West China as an example, a fine mesh finite element model with a total of approximately 3.5 million degrees of freedom is established. The separate effects of the cantilever and integral dead loads on the static and dynamic responses of the dam are studied. The results demonstrate that the distribution and magnitude of the contraction joint opening width and maximum tensile stress are different under the two different dead load simplifications.