Elasto-Plastic Finite Element Analysis of Menta Dam Under Two Earthquake Excitations

Abstract

As a part of seismic analyses of Menta embankment dam (Theme B) in 15th International Benchmark Workshop on Numerical Analysis of Dams, a dynamic elasto-plastic analysis was conducted to study the seismic behavior of Menta dam. An advanced elasto-plastic model to better capture complex loading history, implemented in the finite element procedure Geotechnical Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis (GEODYNA), was adopted to reproduce the dynamic behavior of the rockfill materials. The model parameters of rockfill materials were obtained based on the test results of dynamic modulus and damping ratio. An elasto-plastic soil-structure interface model that can trace the separation and re-contact was used to simulate the interface behaviors between the face slabs and cushion layer, and the model parameters were determined by empirical data published in the literature. The Friuli earthquake occurred in 1976 (1#) and Central Italy earthquake sequence of 2016 (2#) were applied at the bottom boundary of the mesh, respectively. The horizontal records were scaled to a peak acceleration of 0.26 g. The numerical results-initial stress state, acceleration, displacement and slab stress were plotted and analyzed.