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Gravity Dam

Gravity dams resist external forces through their own weight. They are constructed of masonry or concrete directly on foundations able to bear the weight. Gravity dams store water, generate power, control flooding, and enable recreation. They have simple, inexpensive designs requiring little maintenance. Historically, early gravity dams were built by Egyptians and Romans using stone. The document discusses forces acting on gravity dams like water pressure, dam weight, uplift pressure, and seismic activity. It also describes methods of analyzing stresses in gravity dams.

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160 views89 pages

Gravity Dam

Gravity dams resist external forces through their own weight. They are constructed of masonry or concrete directly on foundations able to bear the weight. Gravity dams store water, generate power, control flooding, and enable recreation. They have simple, inexpensive designs requiring little maintenance. Historically, early gravity dams were built by Egyptians and Romans using stone. The document discusses forces acting on gravity dams like water pressure, dam weight, uplift pressure, and seismic activity. It also describes methods of analyzing stresses in gravity dams.

Uploaded by

arti
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© © All Rights Reserved
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GRAVITY DAMS

Civil Engineering Department,


Faculty Of Technology & Engineering,
THE M.S.UNIVERSITY OF BARODA
INTRODUCTION

A Dam is a hydraulic structure constructed across a river or a stream to retain


the water.
The structure which resist external forces by its own weight.
This type of structure is most durable, solid and required little maintenance.
The dam may be constructed of masonry or concrete.
They can be constructed on any dam site, where a natural foundation enough
to bear the weight of the dam.
Why do we build dams?

•Dams can store rain water or water directly from the river itself. Then, in case of
a Drought, the dam will still have a relatively constant supply of water.

• Producing Power.

• Controls flooding & provides recreational activities such as boating fishing and
swimming, if the lake is not being used for drinking water (Dam Society).

• Simple design makes for inexpensive repairs and maintenance costs (Dam
Society)
Advantages of Building a Dam
 
•Simple design makes for inexpensive repairs and maintenance costs (Dam
Society).

•Produce inexpensive (after completion) and clean power.

•Renewable energy source, because the water is not destroyed by passing


through the dam.

•If needed, dams can be shut down instantly, where thermal plants take hours, and
nuclear plants can take days! (Dam Society).

•Very few breakdowns.


HISTORY

Gravity dams were the first type of dam constructed, and were made
from stone bricks.
It was built by the Egyptians around 2950 to 2750 BC.
The dam called Saddel-Kafara and meaning “Dam of the Pagans”.
A covering of limestone was applied to the dam to protect it from
erosion.
Due to shoddy and hasty workmanship, the dam failed to be watertight
eventually resulting in its erosion after only a few years.
HISTORY

Another rudimentary form of gravity dam was supposedly fabricated around


3000 B.C. in the town of Jawa, located in Jordan.
These gravity dams were part of a water supply system.
The Romans built their gravity dams in the Iberian Peninsula region, North Africa
and in the Middle East.
A dam located at Homs, Syria in 284 A.D. impounded one of the largest
reservoirs built by the Romans.
The dam was 6,562 feet (2,000 m) in length and held back about 90 million m3
of water.
Figure 13.10
WATER PRESSURE

It is the major external force acting on a dam.


The intensity of the pressure varies triangularly, with a zero intensity at the water
surface, to a value “wh” at depth h below the water surface.
Force due to water pressure
P = W H2 / 2
This acts at a height of h/3 from base of the dam.
WEIGHT OF THE DAM
Weight of the dam is the major resisting
force.
Unit length of the dam is consider.
Total weight of the dam acts at the center of
gravity of this section.
UPLIFT PRESSURE

•Uplift pressure is the upward pressure exerted by water as it


seeps through the body of the dam or its foundation.
•Seeping water exerts pressure on the base of the dam and it
depends upon water head.
SILT PRESSURE

• Silt gets deposited against the upstream face of the dam.


• If h is the height of the silt deposited, then the force exerted by
this silt in addition to external water pressure, can be
Psilt = γsat .h2 . Ka / 2
• It acts at h/3 from base.
Earthquake or seismic activity is associated with
complex oscillating patterns of acceleration and
ground motions, which generate transient dynamic
loads due to inertia of the dam and the retained
body of water. Horizontal and vertical accelerations
are not equal, the former being of greater intensity.
The earthquake acceleration is usually designated as a fraction of the acceleration
due to gravity and is expressed as α⋅g, where α is the Seismic Coefficient.

The seismic coefficient depends on various factors, like the intensity of the
earthquake, the part or zone of the country in which the structure is located, the
elasticity of the material of the dam and its foundation, etc.

For the purpose of determining the value of the seismic coefficient which has to be
adopted in the design of a dam, India has been divided into five seismic zones,
depending upon the severity of the earthquakes which may occur in different places.
The BIS code also indicates two methods that may be used for determining the
coefficient α.
As mentioned earlier, the earthquake forces cause both the dam structure
as well as the water stored in the reservoir to vibrate. The forces
generated in the dam is called the Inertia Force and that in the water body,
Hydrodynamic Force.

Since the earthquake forces are generated due to the vibration of the
earth itself, which may be shaking horizontally in the two directions as well
as vibrating vertically.

For design purpose, one has to consider the worst possible scenario, and
hence the combination that is seen to be the least favourable to the
stability of the dam has to be considered.
When the dam has been newly constructed, and the reservoir has not
yet been filled, then the worst combination of vertical and horizontal
inertia forces would have to be taken that cause the dam to topple
backward as shown in Figure 30. The notations used in the figure are
as follows:

Hu: Horizontal earthquake force acting in the upstream direction

HD: Horizontal earthquake force acting in the downstream direction

Vu: Vertical earthquake force acting upwards

VD: Vertical earthquake force acting downwards


Under the reservoir full condition, the worst combination of the inertia forces is
the one which tries to topple the dam forward, as shown in Figure 31.
In the Seismic Coefficient method, the horizontal and vertical acceleration
coefficients, αh and αv, respectively, are assumed to vary linearly from base of the
dam to its top as shown in Figure 32.
In order to find the force generated due to the acceleration, it would be necessary
to divide the dam into horizontal strips, finding out the force on each strip, and then
integrating for the total dam height (Figure 33).

This has to be done for both horizontal force H and vertical force V. Taking moment
of these forces for each strip about any point in the dam body (say the heel or the
toe) and integrating over the dam height would give the moment due to horizontal
and vertical earthquake forces.
TRIAL LOAD TWIST METHOD
Gravity Analysis method is based on assumption that
the dam behaves as vertical cantilevers independent of
each other. This assumption is true if

1.the dam is considered in a wide U-Shaped valley and


2.the transverse joints are not keyed or grouted
If the transverse joints are keyed or grouted the dam will tend to behave as
a monolithic structure and the two dimensional analysis OR Gravity Method
will not be true.
 
Trial load Twist Method is based on the assumption that
If the transverse joints are keyed or grouted the dam will tend to behave as
a monolithic structure and the two dimensional analysis OR Gravity Method
will not be true.
 
Trial load Twist Method is based on the assumption that the horizontal
elements of the dam will behave as abeam and will transfer the water
pressure acting upon it to the abutments by beam action.
If the transverse joints are keyed or grouted the dam will tend to behave as
a monolithic structure and the two dimensional analysis OR Gravity Method
will not be true.
 
Trial load Twist Method is based on the assumption that the horizontal
elements of the dam will behave as abeam and will transfer the water
pressure acting upon it to the abutments by beam action. Further the
height of the dam reduces as it proceeds from center towards the side as
the valley on both the sides rises steeply.
The successive cantilever elements therefore go on
reducing in the height and their deflection also goes
on reducing.
The successive cantilever elements therefore go on
reducing in the height and their deflection also goes
on reducing. Each cantilever element is thus dragged
on its one face to greater deflections by deeper
adjacent cantilevers on the valley side and is held by
the shorter cantilever on hill side. This develops a
twist effect on each cantilever .
In the trial load twist method therefore the entire dam
is divided in to number of vertical cantilevers and
horizontal beam elements.

These elements are then supposed to form three


structural system namely:
1.Cantilever Structural System
2.Beam Structural System
3.Twist Structural System
Cantilever Structural System is formed to resist the external load by
gravity action through bending and shear along horizontal planes.

Beam Structural System is formed to resist bending

Twist Structural System is formed to resist twisting moments caused by


shearing of horizontal elements and angular rotation of vertical
elements.
The portion of pressures taken by each

element is obtained by dividing out the load

distribution between them that the deflection

of a common point considered on any

element is same.
STRESS CONCENTRATION
AROUND OPENINGS
Dams of gravity or Arch type constructed in masonry or concrete require
many kinds of openings for their proper functioning.
These openings are :

1.Drainage galleries
2.Cross galleries
3. Sluice outlets
4. Penstokes
5. Vertical drainage shafts etc..
These openings are in fact, the points of structural discontinuity OR abrupt
change in their shape (geometry) and their position disturbs and
redistributes the primary stress pattern around them.

The generally used theory of linear variation of vertical stress is not


applicable strictly around such opening. It still may be valid for places
away from such openings.
These localized change OR redistribution in stress (both in
magnitude and in direction) around opening – that are
induces over and above primary stress at different points in
absence of such openings called stress concentration
around openings.

These are special cases of secondary stresses as observed


at the junction of a dam with foundation (heel or toe) and the
abutment.
For determining stress concentrations around opening in dams…
 
Two dimensional stress analysis describing stress distribution around a
circular OR elliptical hole in thin infinite plate subject to uniform direct
stress is considered.

If a thin plate subject to a uniform uni-directional primary stress is pierced


by a hole concentration on stresses will occur at the sides of the hole
1.Parallel to primary stress and
2.Transverse stress of opposite sign will occur at opposite side.

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