Characterization of an ASR-Affected Hydraulic Concrete Structure for Numerical Study

This paper summarizes an important R&D industry-university collaboration project related to a hydro-electric facility affected by alkali-silica reaction (ASR). The work in progress started almost ten years ago and aims to predict the long-term behavior of the facility using advanced finite element method (FEM). After a presentation of the facility, extensive experimental investigation campaigns on concrete cores extracted from the dam and on specimens made from concrete mixtures similar in composition and constituents to the ones used for construction will be detailed. Three laboratories were involved in the characterization campaigns. At Hydro-Quebec (HQ) research institute (IREQ), basic concrete testing, expansion and long-term creep tests were performed. At Polytechnique Montreal, large concrete blocks were tested using wedge splitting tests to assess the impact of ASR on the concrete fracture energy (size independent), a fundamental input parameter for numerical modelling of mass concrete structures. At Laval University, the focus was on characterizing the kinetics of the reaction, the anisotropy effects from casting or coring direction and the effect of confinement upon expansion. The paper presents the results from an owner’s strategic perspective and discusses how they will be applied to the management of the dam. More advanced technical and scientific aspects are detailed in other papers presented at ICAAR 2024.