Damage Evaluation in a Concrete Gravity Dam Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

An unexpected failure of a concrete gravity dam may cause unimaginable human suffering and massive economic losses. An earthquake is the main factor contributing to the concrete gravity dam's failure. In recent years, there has been a rise in efforts globally to make dams safe under dynamic loading. Numerical modeling of dams under earthquake loading yields substantial insights into dams’ fracture and damage progression. In the present work, a particle-based computational framework is developed to investigate the failure of the Koyna dam, a concrete gravity dam in India exposed to dynamic loading. The dam-foundation system is considered here. The numerically obtained crack results in the concrete dam are compared with the available experimental results. The findings are consistent with one another.