The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

A computer program for earthquake analysis of gravity dams including hydrodynamic interaction

Chakrabarti, Parthasarathi; Chopra, Anil K.

UCB/EERC-73/07, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1973-05, 60 pages (540/C47/1973)

A computer program for earthquake analysis of gravity dams including effects of hydrodynamic interaction is presented. The dam-water system is idealized as two-dimensional in geometry; the material behavior is assumed to be linearly elastic; and the transverse-horizontal as well as the vertical component of ground motion is considered. The dam is represented as a finite element system, whereas water in the reservoir is treated as a continuum of infinite length in the upstream direction governed by the wave equation. Compressibility of water is considered, resulting in governing equations for the dam depending on the excitation frequency. The analysis is performed in the frequency domain, first obtaining the frequency responses and then Fourier synthesizing them by Fast Fourier Transform procedures to obtain responses to arbitrary ground motion. A listing of the computer program is included and the usage and capabilities are illustrated by examples.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-73-07.pdf (6 MB)