Abstract
The seismic behaviour of asphaltic concrete core dam under earthquake loads has been studied. The study consists of three parts; element tests on asphalt concrete, numerical analysis and some model tests. In the first part, a series of triaxial monotonic and cyclic tests were performed at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI)'s laboratory to determine the geotechnical parameters of asphalt concrete. Then, numerical analyses were carried out for Garmrood dam in Iran with a height of 110 m. The different stages of construction and impounding were analyzed using a hyperbolic stress-strain model. The dynamic analysis was then performed using two different models; nonlinear elasto-plastic material model and an equivalent linear method followed by the Newmark approach to estimate the permanent displacements. Finally, some 1-g model shaking table tests were performed on a typical rockfill dam to have a qualitative picture of the modes of seismic behaviour of an asphaltic concrete core rockfill dam. Element tests result shows that the asphaltic concrete is resistant to earthquake excitations and the earthquake has to be very strong to cause any detrimental cracking or material degradation of the properties of a ductile asphaltic concrete. In addition, the obtained results from numerical analysis and model tests show the appropriate response of the dam during and after earthquake caused shaking.
