Influence of Dynamic Analysis Methods on Seismic Response of a Buttress Dam

The seismic analysis of a buttress dam with 73.50 m height is performed by the spectral analysis method and the direct time integration method. An accelerogram with 0.1g maximum acceleration was applied horizontally, in the upstream - downstream direction, at the bottom of the dam-foundation finite element mesh. The hydrodynamic effect of the reservoir was considered according to the added mass procedure (Westergaard relation). ABAQUS software was used to make the analyses. The same type of finite element C3D20R was used for the mesh of the dam body and of the foundation. The comparison of the results is made on the displacements, the stress state and the sliding stability on the dam-foundation contact in the full reservoir hypothesis. The comprehensive analysis concluded that both methods had provided close results for the considered case study. The spectral analysis method revealed itself to be more conservative compared to the direct time integration method.