Investigation of the factors affecting the seismic analysis of rock fill and clay-core rock fill dams

Seismic performance is one of the most important issues for earthfill and rock fill dams which are constructed in regions that have high seismic activity. In this study, in order to be able to see the effects of dam height, slope angle and amplitude of input motion on the peak crest acceleration, the response of typical earthfill and rockfill dams with various heights and slope angles are analysed by Quake/W FEM software under different amplitudes of acceleration. The results of numerical analysis showed that peak crest accelerations may reach values 2.0 times the peak ground acceleration, depending on the dam geometry and amplitude of the input motion. Based on the findings gathered from the parametric studies carried out on two typical dam sections, the seismic response of Kralkızı dam during an earthquake with a moment magnitude of Mw=4.6 was analyzed and the results of these numerical analyses were compared with the available earthquake motion data recorded at crest level during the earthquake. The seismic performance of Kralkızı dam was also investigated through a performance based approach by applying different seismic events at the base of the dam. The results of the performance based analysis were evaluated and comparisons were made between the limit states and performance criteria defined in Eurocode 8.