Benchmark Study Results: Hydro-Québec

Abstract

The model used by Hydro-Québec Production was developed targeting large hydraulic structures such as dams. It is used by engineers to determine if the hydraulic structures are safe despite the presence of the alkali-aggregate reaction and to predict the long-term behavior as well as its performance for different loading scenarios including seismic loads. The model may use simplifying assumptions to reduce the number of parameters while ensuring that these assumptions are on the conservative side. The code was developed to be embedded inside the finite element software ANSYS using User Programmable Features (UPF). The approach used to implement all the physics required to model AAR in hydraulic structures and to ensure the greatest flexibility while remaining within the framework provided by the commercial software is to program a new element type (commonly named UserElement).