224 WATER.RESOURCES ENGINEERING 8.3 Design of Gravity Dams Prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, dams were designed by rule of thumb with little concern for the principles of mechanics of materials, and, as a Tesult, they were usually more massive than necessary. Pioneers in the field of improved design of gravity dams were the French engineer DeSazilly, the English scientist Rankine, and in the United States, Wegmann. Some large gravity dams are listed in Table 8.1. A gravity dam must be statically and dynamically stable, and the design must be such that stresses in the concrete do not exceed allowable limits. To have a stable structure, the reactive forces developed by the rock and soil upon which the dam rests must be capable of balancing the active forces mentioned in Sec, 8.2. A carefully conducted geologic investigation should be one of the first steps in the design of a dam. The geologic investigation should include inspection of the rock outcrops and extensive underground exploration by means of test holes, core drilling, and geophysical methods. Some of the test holes should be large enough for a person to enter and inspect thoroughly. A simplified approach to the analysis of gravity dams based on elastic behavior of concrete is presented in the following sections. This approach is adequate for the design of small dams. It is also useful for preliminary design of large dams, though final design is generally accomplished through application of more sophisticated methods involving finite-clement procedures.! 8.4 Structural Stability of Gravity Dams Figure-8.4 is a free-body diagram of the cross section of a slice of a gravity dam. Although a gravity dam behaves almost as if it were a monolith, for purposes of this simplified analysis it is assumed that each slice acts independently of adjoining slices. The forces shown are the weight of the dam W, the horizontal components of hydrostatic force H,,, the vertical components of hydrostatic force H,, uplift U, ice pressure F,, the increased hydrostatic pressure caused by earthquakes E,, and the inertia force caused by the earthquake on the dam itself Ey. The vectorial resultant of these forces is equal and opposite to R, the equilibrant, which is the effective force of the foundation on the base of the dam. A gravity dam may fail by sliding along a horizontal plane, by rotation about the toe, or by failure of the material. Failure may occur at the foundation plane or at any higher level | in the dam. Sliding (or shear failure) will occur when the net horizontal force above | any plane in the dam exceeds the shear resistance developed at that level. It is | good construction practice to step the foundation of a dam to increase resistance to sliding. Overturning and excessive compressive stress can be avoided byoar urs, 99 oan ¥s ot 768 = i psiau0$, €0s ae tanpnyyquieseg vey - - quoumneag = os oF 98 V9 st ~ yosimyy ove 9 ss ODIKOWN MON, onng queydoyg so is 19 MHA ON woI0s MON, +e 0 19 SLUON fp 09 eh, = - - Jrovemyns Jedd, ore 99 ry o09'LI = = v9 zs ry ply = = 01641 ruses bt we oor's oan, el ra 00691 = = = ssn sie lor paaing, = = puepozins, ‘souDxiq apuest OOL'TT wares wt t6 worsuryse A, aajnod purin, paraydusos tt Or weld w uw uw ais S71 owen awa, Aapedea ‘sso typ BuUaT 40 kayun03, soAI950y, ase, doy,SE Pe 8 Batter 1:20 RR r (6) Free-body diagram —_(e) Free-body diagram 60 of block By for of block By with ae es --- = empty reservoir reservoir full Toe Heel (a) Cross section of dam {d) Definition sketch for analysis of stress parallel to face of dam FIGURE 8.4 Analysis of a gravity dam. selecting a cross section of proper size and shape. Typical working stresses employed in the design of concrete dams are about 600 psi (4000 kN/m?) for compression and 0 psi for terision. Tensile stresses are avoided by keeping the resultant of all forces within the middle third of the base. 85 Analysis of Gravity Dams Preliminary analysis of a gravity dam is made by isolating a typical cross section (or slice) of unit width. As mentioned in the preceding, this section is assumed to act independently of adjoining sections. Structural analysis of a section proceeds step by step from top to bottom and must consider both reservoir-full and reservoir-empty conditions. It is assumed that the conorete behaves as an elastic material. Exaile 8.1, Figure 8.4a shows a typical cross section near the center of a gravil dam. Analyze the block B, for stability. Assume zero freeboard. Solution. The forces acting on block B, are shown in Fig. 8.46. For the condition of empty reservoir the hydrostatic forces are zero, and, neglecting earthquake 9m ice forces, the only active force is the weight W acting at the center of gravity: Taking