The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Dynamic properties of Pine Flat Dam

Rea, Dixon; Liaw, C. Y.; Chopra, Anil K.

UCB/EERC-72/07, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1972-12, 76 pages (545.1/R35/1972)

Dynamic tests were undertaken to determine if the equipment that had been used to test other structures would have sufficient power to excite measurable vibrations in a concrete gravity dam and to determine as much about the dynamic properties of the dam as the existing equipment would permit. Two series of tests at different water levels were performed. Measurements of dynamic water pressure in the reservoir were attempted. The results of the dynamic tests on Pine Flat Dam were used to check the accuracy of two mathematical models of the dam. In the first mathematical model, the dam is idealized as an assemblage of three-dimensional finite elements and the effects of water in the reservoir are neglected. In the second mathematical model, the dam is idealized as a plane section having the same geometry as a section through one of the taller monoliths. Using this model, the effects of water in the reservoir may be accounted for by treating the water as a continuum governed by the two-dimensional wave equation. Comparisons are made between the dynamic properties of the mathematical model and the experimentally determined properties of the Pine Flat Dam.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-72-07.pdf (8 MB)