Stress Characteristics of Fill Dam Gallery

Analysis of reinforced concrete structures (I)

Abstract

This paper describes the stress characteristics of a culvert type inspection gallery, which is located at the bottom of a fill dam to provide a space for boring holes and grouting into foundations and to monitor the structural behavior of the fill dam after construction.
In this report, the finite element method is applied to analyze the stresses of the cross section models of the gallery subjected to embankment load, and the influence of gallery shapes, analytical conditions and foundation properties on the stress states of the gallery are investigated.
Results show that the stress characteristics of the gallery constructed on foundation rock are significantly affected by the change of the gallery shape and the foundation property. Especially, tensile stress produced at the cross section is affected by the change of the foundation properties such as, elastic modulus and Poisson's ratio. From these analytical results, it is concluded that the inspection gallery in a fill dam should be considered as a complex structural system consisting of fill, foundation rock and gallery concrete.