The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Dynamic reservoir interaction with Monticello Dam

Clough, Ray W.; Ghanaat, Yusof; Qiu, Xiong-Fei

UCB/EERC-87/21, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1987-12, 127 pages (540/C593/1987)

This study of arch dam-reservoir interaction is an outgrowth of a four-year U.S.-China cooperative research project on interaction effects in the seismic response of arch dams. Inconsistent comparisons were obtained in that project between measured and calculated dynamic reservoir pressures induced by shaking tests of arch dams; this study was planned to improve understanding of the dynamic interaction mechanism. Monticello Dam, an arch dam in California, was chosen as the test system, and the research involved comparison of hydrodynamic pressures measured during vibration tests with results predicted analytically. A major question for this study was the significance of compressibility of the reservoir water with regard to the interaction forces applied to the dam by the reservoir, so analyses were done both including and neglecting compressibility. Hydrodynamic pressures measured at the face of the vibrating dam were compared for order of magnitude with analytical results. The response of the dam to an earthquake appropriate to that location was calculated by two computer programs: ADAP-II, which neglects compressibility, and EACD-3D, which includes it.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-87-21.pdf (4 MB)